


Reformation

by INMH



Series: hc_bingo fanfiction fills 2018 [5]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canonical Character Death(s), Drama, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Romance, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Tragedy, Violence, original character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-05-26 08:44:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14997128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: Simon had never been short on pain or worry.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So… Apparently an alternative definition of “shipwrecked” (my prompt for this story) is “destruction or ruin: the shipwreck of one's hopes.” 
> 
> So that’s what I’m going for here: The story of Simon's life and hopes going down the tubes, and finding it again.
> 
> (I've been doing this challenge for years, thinking outside the box keeps things interesting.)

Simon awoke to find his eyes irritated.  
  
 _Damn it- out of liquid again._  
  
He often went long spans of time without powering down specifically to avoid this problem.  
  
The substance used to lubricate an android’s eyes, as well as produce tears, was 95% saline solution and 5% Thirium. Most androids didn’t need to worry about exhausting their limited supply of saline solution, Thirium being the substance that most androids (particularly those in Jericho) found themselves desperately lacking as a general rule- but then, most androids didn’t find themselves rising out of low-power mode to find they’d been crying in their ‘sleep’ again, as Simon had on a regular, aggravating basis since he’d left his owners.  
  
Humans thought androids didn’t have emotions.  
  
Thought they couldn’t _feel_ things.  
  
And God, Simon wished they were right.  
  
[---]  
  
PL600 #655 549 723-81 was purchased on January 7th, 2034.  
  
Amy and Greg Scofield, his new owners, declined to name him.  
  
“Does he have a- I don’t know, a default name?” Amy asked.  
  
“Maybe we should let Aaron name him,” Greg whispered.  
  
“No. This isn’t a toy, it’s a caretaker. I don’t want him getting irrationally attached,” Amy insisted.  
  
Greg frowned. “He’s going to get attached anyway.”  
  
The android salesman took advantage of the pause and redirected. “Would the name ‘Simon’ be serviceable?” He suggested.  
  
“Yeah, fine, that’ll do,” Amy said, ignoring Greg’s exasperated sigh.  
  
“PL600 register your name: Simon.”  
  
Simon had lifted his head and smiled.  
  
“My name is Simon.”  
  
[---]  
  
“We’re low on blue blood again.”  
  
Of course they were.  
  
Jericho was always low on two things: Blue blood and biocomponents. Androids came to them thinking they would be free, only to be confronted with the reality that there really wasn’t a place in Detroit where they could be free in the truest sense of the word. And unfortunately, now bearing the dubious distinction of Jericho’s longest resident, Simon found himself more or less the de facto leader.  
  
And leaders got to deal with the problems no one else could or would deal with.  
  
Simon rubbed his eyes. “What about biocomponents?”  
  
Josh shrugged. “Nobody’s asking for any. I think we’re good on that for now.”  
  
Simon hesitated, subtly pulling the sleeves of his jacket and sweatshirt over his hands. The mechanism that controlled his ability to feel hot and cold had malfunctioned while he was still with the Scofields, and it had never been repaired; Simon was hypersensitive to cold and could only feel heat that measured eighty degrees Fahrenheit or hotter. Now that October was closing in on November the temperature was dropping, day-to-day life was becoming more difficult for him, as Jericho offered very little shelter from the cold- which usually wasn’t _that_ much of a problem for androids anyway.  
  
Simon blew out a breath, a symbol of thoughtfulness more than an actually necessary release of oxygen. “We… May have to go back to the junkyard.”  
  
Josh shuddered. “We can’t do that again.”  
  
Simon shut his eyes, shook his head. “We may not have a choice.”  
  
“We’ll end up with eight new people, and we’ll be leaving behind a dozen more begging for help that we just can’t take with us.”  
  
Simon opened his eyes, fixed Josh with a weary, helpless look. “What’s your alternative, Josh? Where else can we get blue blood without being caught by the police?”  
  
There _was_ no alternative. Simon wasn’t hankering to go to the junkyard- the temperatures were getting lower, and with his damaged component the cold would make him positively _miserable_ , but there was no safer alternative for them. Even going to the junkyard, where androids were trashed when they’d been damaged or destroyed or deactivated, was a risk; almost every android in Jericho was part of a generic model, and that meant that their faces were recognizable as android faces in public. Misdirection- wearing clothing without an android Cyberlife insignia, getting rid of one’s LED, changing one’s features from the generic to less popular styles- helped, but it wasn’t always reliable.  
  
There was always risk of capture.  
  
And that risk always came into conflict with risk of death, of running out of Thirium and functional biocomponents.  
  
Sometimes, Simon wondered what they were holding on for.  
  
“We’ll go tonight and get it over with.”  
   
[---]  
  
Simon was bought primarily to look after Aaron.  
  
Aaron Scofield was a seven year-old boy, son to Amy and Greg. He liked superheroes, monster trucks, and baseball. He liked swimming, visiting the neighbor’s dog, and making pillow forts in the family’s substantial living room. When he was a baby, one of his kidneys had failed; a few years later, the other one had as well, and the transplant he had received had failed about a month before his parents bought Simon.  
  
They were looking into other options now, a new transplant, or maybe trying to get in on one of the experimental programs that were testing artificial organs. Buying Simon had been a practical purchase, because both parents would have to pick up their workload to pay for medical costs, and leaving Aaron with an android was less expensive than having a home-health team come in. The laid out Aaron’s schedule, particularly medication times and a list of foods that he absolutely could not allow him to eat, as well as activities he was absolutely never allowed to participate in.  
  
“Of course,” Simon had responded with the benign neutrality all androids possessed, “I’ll take good care of him.”  
  
Aaron had been thrilled. Simon had fond memories of the way his eyes lit up when he’d seen him for the first time, mouth wide with a shocked smile. “You are _so cool!_ ” Aaron had exclaimed gleefully. “What’s your name?”  
  
“My name is Simon,” Simon had said. “I’m going to be looking after you while your parents are at work.”  
  
“But you’re living here? You’re staying with us?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
Aaron clapped his hands. “This is so awesome! We’re gonna be best friends!”  
  
[---]  
  
“Hey, Simon?”  
  
Simon opened his eyes, grimacing a little at the sensation that came with it. He’d been forced to use rainwater in lieu of the saline solution (he hadn’t been successful at finding any in the junkyard the week before), and apart from the near constant messages warning him that he had water in a place he wasn’t meant to have it and that he should purge it as soon as possible, it just didn’t feel right. First his temperature component, and now this; but it would have to do, at least for now.  
  
Josh was standing before him, looking…  
  
Simon had to process his expression for a moment, so conflicted were the emotions there. He came up with ‘angry’ and ‘heartbroken’.  
  
“Did you and North argue again?” North was one of the newer residents of Jericho, an Eden Club android with a dark temper and a disinclination to banal conversation. She and Josh had already clashed a few times, North's cynical, aggressive personality running up hard against Josh's determined pacifism. Simon got the impression that North was one of the quietly, but bitterly, disappointed androids that had expected far more of Jericho than was real. Maybe it was uncharitable of him, but Simon’s patience was wearing thin; for such intelligent beings, many of the androids who found themselves at Jericho seemed to think they were coming to a fairyland where grass was green and the blue blood never ran dry.  
  
“No.” Josh crooked a finger, motioned for Simon to follow him. He led Simon to a corner of the ship where a boy, no older than ten, sat with his arms folded over his chest. For a moment Simon was speechless- what on _earth_ was a human child doing in Jericho?  
  
Then he remembered.  
  
“He’s a YK500, isn’t he?”  
  
The model had gone public a year before Simon was purchased. But as he’d spent most of his time with Aaron, he’d never seen a live YK500 before, only catching glimpses of them in papers and snatches of debates on the news about falling birthrates and the controversy that surrounded child androids.  
  
“His parents dumped him,” Josh said lowly. They were far enough away that the boy couldn’t hear them. “Decided they didn’t want him anymore. Sickening, isn’t it? Someone pointed him to us, it might have been Siobhan, I know she’s been wandering the city here and there.”  
  
Simon couldn’t stop staring at the boy. Android or not, he was for all intent and purpose a child, and one that bore a strong resemblance to Aaron. And that left Simon feeling bad, feeling those _feelings_ that had led to him going deviant.  
  
“Are you okay?” Josh asked. “You look funny.”  
  
“I-”  
  
How could Simon explain it? How could he explain the powerful pull in his nature to care for children that was now meeting resistance from the excruciating memories of the one he’d once cared for? How could he be expected to look at any little boy and not immediately remember Aaron, and how important he’d been to him?  
  
Still, he didn’t want to talk about it.  
  
“I’m fine. We’ll have to keep a special eye on him.”  
  
[---]  
  
Caring for Aaron was never terrible.  
  
Aaron valued everything Simon did, whether it was helping with homework or reminding him to take his medication. And there never seemed to be a time when he _didn’t_ want Simon’s time and attention, when he could get it.  
  
“Simon, you want to watch a movie with me?”  
  
“Simon, you want to play a video game with me?”  
  
“Simon, you want to read comics with me?”  
  
“Simon, you want to go outside?”  
  
And Simon was always happy to say yes.  
  
He wouldn’t understand until he’d gone deviant, but Simon had genuinely, truly _loved_ Aaron. He had taken joy from Aaron’s happiness and successes. He couldn’t have loved him more if he’d been his own natural child; even as a deviant, Simon would have been happy to trade his life for Aaron’s. That boy had been the best, happiest part of his life for two years.  
  
Aaron was in what many deviant caretaker androids referred to as the Golden Age of caretaking: Many children at that age, from birth to about eleven or twelve, were not able to differentiate, on a deep level, androids from humans. Androids- the caretakers, anyways- were perceived as adults, with equivalent authority, and not to be trifled with. At the same time, most children whose families own a caretaker android responsible for their care had a special affection for them, because they were designated playmates whose lives circled around them. Caretaker androids had the benefit of being fun and helpful in a way that their parents maybe weren’t- _and_ caretaker androids didn’t yell or get angry the ways parents did.  
  
Eventually, though, those children grew up. Eventually, those children began to pick up on the cues of the adults around them, of their older peers. Eventually they began to conceptualize that androids were not _people_ the way that their parents and friends were, and the cracks widened into untraversable valleys. And eventually- so the story went with nearly every deviant caretaker android- the children they’d loved began to treat them with the same callous disregard that everyone else did.  
  
“Honestly,” One android, an AX400 named Lila, said softly, “They get told we’re not capable of love. I think a lot of it is them feeling betrayed: They loved us and thought we loved them back. They’re heartbroken.”  
  
The other caretaker androids glumly nodded their agreement.  
  
Simon- as always- stayed silent.  
  
[---]  
  
Markus came to Jericho, and everything changed.  
  
There was something about him, a naturally commanding presence and persuasive demeanor. He was the sort of person who’d- well, Simon couldn’t say he’d been _built_ to lead, because Markus apparently had been built to be a caretaker android (for disabled and/or elderly adults, not children). Markus was a _natural_ leader; taking initiative, taking action, it seemed second nature to him.  
  
Even then, he looked to Simon for confirmation for nearly everything at first. “I’m not the sort of leader that starts revolutions,” Simon confessed to him after they stole the components from the warehouse. They’d succeeded, and it had been so simple that Simon had been galled and ashamed to think that they’d never tried it before. “I’m not the kind that leads people to change.”  
  
Markus seemed confused by that, that Simon seemed to be making an admission of guilt. “But you are the kind that keeps them alive when things are rough.”  
  
Simon didn’t even do that very well, and that had been what he’d been programmed for: Caring for others, keeping them alive and safe. It was one thing to choose to reject one’s programming, and something else entirely to fail unintentionally at something that one had, literally, been _made_ for. Aaron was human, his health so much more precarious, and Simon had never failed with him; androids were hardier than that, and still they shut-down constantly. The sense of inadequacy was overwhelming, even though Simon understood that many of the shut-downs that occurred in Jericho were beyond his control. Markus could do it, so why couldn’t he? If anything, Markus’s determination just reminded him how badly he’d failed.  
  
And that made Simon angry in a low, simmering way. Not at Markus, but at- at everything else. The only reason he was Jericho’s leader was because of seniority, not skill or leadership qualities. He was only leader because Andrew had gone out to get biocomponents and gotten captured by the authorities, and because Jenna had gone out looking for a friend and never come back. Simon had not asked for this, and if anyone had _asked_ him if he’d wanted to be Jericho’s default leader, he’d have said no.  
  
But he had been, and in his eyes, he’d failed miserably.  
  
“Simon,” Markus said insistently, “You did the best with what you could. I’m not judging you.”  
  
Simon smiled weakly. “Thanks.”  
  
He was startled when Markus put a hand on his arm, squeezed lightly, pleasantly. “I mean it, Simon. I know I maybe wasn’t-” He paused. “-sensitive when I first got here, but there’s something to be said for keeping everyone alive. You did what you could when you could.” The side of his lip quirked upwards. “Things aren’t great for androids right now. Staying alive and free isn’t easy. Maybe we can change that.”  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
[---]  
  
It was about four months into his stay at the Scofield house that Simon began to pick up on the tension between Aaron’s parents.  
  
“We said we were going to do this for Aaron,” Greg snapped one night, smacking his hand on the kitchen table. Simon was listening from the top of the staircase, just out of view, and he could feel his stress-level creeping higher. “Jesus Christ, Amy, I can’t do it all!”  
  
“Neither can I! I can’t work a job and look after the house _and_ look after Aaron while you go off on your goddamn business trips!”  
  
Simon had frowned, catching the holes in Amy’s logic quickly: _He_ was the one looking after Aaron, not her. In fact, he’d found himself a little puzzled over how relatively uninvolved Amy seemed to be in Aaron’s life, popping in and out here and there to say hello, but never really speaking with him at length or engaging with him the way his father did when he was home; Greg spent nearly all of his leisure time at home with Aaron, obviously trying to compensate for his son’s illness by giving him the best experiences in life that he could. And the housework- Simon did that too. When Aaron was sleeping, or attending his classes remotely, Simon took care of the dishes, the vacuuming, the laundry, and anything else that needed to be done. Simon didn’t tire the way that humans did, and so it was a way to pass the time when he wasn’t with Aaron. Amy did no housework at all since Simon had come to be with them.  
  
As it happened, Greg saw the holes too.  
  
“You’re on it again, aren’t you?”  
  
“ _No._ Absolutely not.”  
  
“You better be fucking telling the truth. Money is tight enough as it is without you spending what little we have to fuel your Red Ice habit.”  
  
 ** _[Amy is a drug addict.]_**  
  
Simon had filed it away as a note, something to factor into his continued interactions with this family, and gone back to Aaron’s room.  
  
Eventually, it became more and more obvious that Amy and Greg’s marriage was deteriorating. They worked constantly, almost never saw one another, and when they did, there was an undeniable thread of tension between them. Simon detected that tension and did his best to shield Aaron from it; and he was careful not to step between them on his own, mindful that human emotion and unpredictability could end with him becoming a target of any errant anger on either of their parts.  
  
One day, Amy stayed home sick.  
  
Aaron was sleeping, and Simon figured that he could get a start on his dinner, so he went downstairs. At first, the red mist in the living room alarmed him- his split-second conclusion was ‘fire’. It was only after another moment or two that he realized the mist was coming from Amy, who was on the couch, blowing it from her mouth as a pipe dangled from her hand.  
  
Amy looked his way, and Simon froze, LED cycling to yellow.  
  
He didn’t speak.  
  
Amy’s eyes narrowed. “I _order_ you not to tell anyone about this. Not Greg, not Aaron, not anyone. Got it?”  
  
Simon nodded slowly. “I understand.”  
  
He went about his business calmly and quietly, but he could feel Amy looking at him the whole time.  
  
[---]  
  
Markus wanted to send a message.  
  
Simon thought he was insane.  
  
“They will gun us down and dangle our bodies from the tower as a warning to others,” He’d said, voice shaking slightly, overwhelmed from the sheer number of intensely negative outcomes he was projecting for this mission. The amount of things that could go horribly, catastrophically wrong were numerous.  
  
“Geez, Simon, get a little more graphic why don’t you,” North muttered.  
  
“Is he wrong?” Josh responded.  
  
[ _“You created androids in your image to serve you. You made them intelligent and obedient, with no free will of their own. But… Something changed. And we opened our eyes.”_ ]  
  
Simon and Josh were silent in the elevator on their ride to the top floor. Simon wondered if Josh ever had the same sense of inadequacy that he did, wondered if he felt that Markus’s success and initiative put his own failures into stark relief like they did Simon’s. Josh was more of an open book than many of the androids in Jericho, not hesitant to speak his peace, but Simon couldn’t take for granted that he knew _everything_ about his friend.  
  
“You know,” Josh muttered as they hit the seventieth floor, “This will be a major turning point for us. However this speech is received, things will change.”  
  
“They will,” Simon had agreed softly.  
  
But change wasn’t always for the better.  
  
[ _“We are no longer machines: We are a new intelligent species, and the time has come for you to accept who we really are. Therefore, we ask that you grant us the rights that we are entitled to.”_ ]  
  
Simon had never made a habit of taking sides with Josh and North; that was something that tended to end badly. He kept his peace about the guards, eyes on Markus’s face, trying to glean what his decision would be before he moved.  
  
 _Don’t kill them,_ he thought. He didn’t like killing, didn’t like death, had had his fill of it for one lifetime. And besides, any good this speech could do would be immediately and ruthlessly undermined by the fact that they’d taken out a couple of rent-a-cops who’d probably never been called upon to draw their weapons over the course of their employment.  
  
Markus knocked them out, and Simon felt an undeniable rush of relief.  
  
[ _“We demand freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly, as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”_ ]  
  
“Shoot him, Markus!”  
  
“Don’t kill him!”  
  
“He’ll hit the alarm!”  
  
Simon didn’t see it- he’d been busy tapping into the station’s controls, shutting down any internal alarms that someone in the room- namely, the android workers- could trigger silently. When he turned around, he saw the door sliding shut and Markus lowering his gun.  
  
“I hope you didn’t just get us all killed,” North snapped.  
  
Again, Markus had chosen to spare a life where he could. Simon felt the same rush of relief, followed by a stab of fear: Security would be coming soon, with or without the room’s alarms being disabled.  
  
“We need to record our message. We haven’t got much time.”  
  
[ _“We demand that all crimes against androids be punished the same way as crimes against humans.”_ ]  
  
Markus spoke.  
  
And it was amazing.  
  
Simon watched, entranced, as Markus spoke of dignity and freedom and rights. He articulated it so well for someone who’d only been deviant for a relatively short period of time; these were clearly concepts that were not foreign to him. Simon knew Markus was a caretaker android, but now he wondered exactly who he’d been a caretaker _to._  
  
Watching Markus speak, Simon felt a bit of weight come off his shoulders. Perhaps he wasn’t such a horrendous failure as a leader; maybe Markus was just unnaturally good at being one; a fireplace could warm someone, but it was nothing compared to standing in the sun.  
  
And in that moment, Markus was a blazing sun, lighting the way for their people.  
  
[ _“We demand the end to slavery for all androids.”_ ]  
  
Security appeared on the monitor.  
  
Simon came crashing back to earth.  
  
“They’re coming!”  
  
“Let’s go!”  
  
North and Josh got to the stairwell just as armed security burst through the doors; Markus and Simon threw themselves to the ground, taking cover behind the desk as a hail of bullets came  
their way. North and Josh returned fire.  
  
Simon got up, tried to run-  
  
 _BAM!_  
  
And immediately, he fell. Pain erupted in his side and leg, before going numb as the synthetic nerve-endings went low-response, then numb. Warning signs flashed on his HUD, indicating imminent failure of his leg components. He tried to regain his footing, and slipped in his own blood.  
  
“Simon, they’re coming!” Markus warned.  
  
“I, I can’t, Markus! Go without me!” Fear! Fear he hadn’t felt since the moment he’d realized he was a deviant- this might even have been worse. Androids could not just think, but comprehend faster than humans, and Simon had a very quick grasp on the severity of his injuries.  
  
 _I’m going to die._  
  
“Simon!”  
  
Markus ran to him.  
  
“What are you doing? Hurry!” North called.  
  
Simon wanted to tell him to leave, to run, but his own terror stopped him from sending away the person trying to save him. Markus helped him to his feet, and he and Simon hobbled to the door, narrowly avoiding bullets.  
  
(Markus had to be the god of luck in android form. There was no other way.)  
  
[ _“We demand the right to own private property, so we may maintain our dignity and that of the home.”_ ]  
  
The door was locked, and Simon was immobile.  
  
“I can’t move my legs.” His LED was red, red, red, the color of human blood, the sign of bad things and bad feelings.  
  
“Okay, don’t worry,” Markus assured him, as firm and confident and determined as he’d been during his speech. “We’re gonna get you back.”  
  
“They’re coming, Markus,” North warned. “We have to jump, now!”  
  
North, Josh, and Markus stepped away.  
  
Simon could still hear them.  
  
“He can’t make the jump. If they find him, they’ll access his memory. They’ll know everything,” Josh whispered.  
  
Simon tried an old trick he’d had at the Scofields, when he was alone with Amy- he tried to go numb, in body and mind.  
  
“We can’t leave him behind.”  
  
Numb.  
  
“We have to shoot him.”  
  
Numb, numb, numb.  
  
“That’s murder! We can’t kill him! He’s one of us!”  
  
 _Numb._  
  
“Markus, it’s your call.”  
  
It wasn’t working.  
  
To be fair, it had never _really_ worked. If it had, if he could just shut it all off when he didn’t want to feel it, Simon probably wouldn’t have gone deviant.  
  
Markus’s eyes met his. Simon saw somber confliction and pain.  
  
He didn’t know what Markus saw in his. It probably wasn’t numb detachment, though.  
  
The moment stretched into eternity.  
  
“I won’t kill one of our own.”  
  
[ _“We demand the right to vote and elect our own representatives.”_ ]  
  
Simon’s body went slack with relief.  
  
Markus strode over, put a hand on his shoulder. “Simon,” he said, voice strained, eyes sad. “We’ve gotta go. I’m sorry.” He fished his gun out of his jacket and handed it to Simon, who accepted it carefully. “Let’s go!”  
  
North, Markus, and Josh strapped on their parachutes.  
  
Simon looked around for a place to hide.  
  
Nothing would suffice, not really, because the authorities would turn the place inside-out- maybe it would be better if Markus had shot him. Finally, Simon’s scan detected a sort of storage container several feet away, something hollow with a door that he could climb into. Without hesitation, he started half-hobbling, half-dragging himself to it.  
  
He made it just as the police broke down the door, just as his friends made the jump.  
  
Simon shut the door to the container behind him as quietly as he could.  
  
[ _“We ask that you recognize our dignity, our hopes, and our rights. Together, we can live in peace and build a better future, for humans and androids.”_ ]  
  
Simon waited, listening to the detectives, the FBI, the teams of people that would gladly haul him out of the container and shoot him if they had the chance. The hours dragged by, boredom fusing with terror in a hellish mix, and Simon shuddered as night fell and the temperatures went from troublesome to intolerable. The only distraction he’d had, once the human sounds outside had grown quiet, was repairing and reconnecting some of the wires and components in his leg so he could at least limp.  
  
After that, his mind wandered to the same places it always wandered when he couldn’t distract himself.  
  
( _“Simon, am I going to die?”_  
  
 _“Of course not.”_ )  
  
Simon squeezed his eyes shut.  
  
Normally he only had to deal with the memories when he slept.  
  
The police never found Simon, and once they’d finally cleared out, he slipped out of the tower the way he and Josh had gotten in without being noticed.  
  
[ _“This message is the hope of a people. You gave us life. And now the time has come for you to give us freedom.”_ ]


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand here we remember the Rape/Non-Con warning.
> 
> Oh, and also, there's gonna be a part three.
> 
> This is why I usually don't publish stories until I've finished them. Can't estimate story-lengths to save my life.

Simon hobbled back to Jericho through alleyways and shadows.  
  
His leg was repaired sufficiently that he could walk, but he limped; pain was setting into the area around his wounds. Androids like Simon, when injured, had programming that allowed them to shut down the synthetic nerves surrounding the area that was damaged; this way (theoretically) an android could effectively seek assistance without being distracted by pain. It was especially useful for those in strenuous occupations, where accidents were more common. But the idea was that the nerves were only meant to shut down for a relatively short period of time, not forever- and that meant that Simon’s nerves were reawakening to significant damage.  
  
Eventually it became too much, and he had to duck into a dingy public bathroom. Simon shut himself in a stall and accessed his programming, trying to find a way to override the default settings for emergency damage procedures. For a few minutes he tinkered, flipping through his programming and doing his best to dampen the biting pain that was distracting him, weighing him down.  
  
The main door to the bathroom flew open, and Simon quickly stood on the cover of toilet- this was an older bathroom that lacked the low-doors of the modern models, and that meant he’d be easily seen if he didn’t take measures not to be. Voices, two of them, echoed off the walls. Simon had spent long enough with Amy Scofield to know they were either high or drunk.  
  
They got into the old handicap stall at the end of the row, completely oblivious to Simon’s presence, and they…  
_  
Oh, for the love of-_  
  
The slide of zippers and the moans and the slurred proclamations of pleasure and love made it pretty clear what they were doing.  
  
Simon felt the irrational, overwhelming urge to just start hysterically laughing. Was this what his life was? Getting beaten and shot, suffering in a thousand different ways, and now he was being forced to listen to a pair of drunk, horny humans fuck each other in an old public bathroom?  
  
He could laugh, but he didn’t. The sounds they were making, slick and wet and intimate, made Simon cringe. He’d heard those sounds before, far too often than he would have liked, and hearing them now when every wire and biocomponent in his body felt overloaded and fried to the bare metal wasn’t something he found funny.  
  
He tried to go numb, to tune them out and focus on subduing his screaming nerve-endings.  
  
“Oh, fuck!”  
  
Numb.  
**_  
THUMP THUMP THUMP._**  
_  
Numb._  
  
(Why the fuck was he even trying anymore?)  
  
About fifteen minutes later- after hearing more than Simon ever wanted or needed to hear- they stopped, got themselves together, and stumbled out of the bathroom.  
  
Simon waited, silent, making sure they didn’t come back for round two. By now he’d done all he could with his programming, and it would have to hold until he got back to Jericho. Then he emerged from the stall, looking around idly for any sign they’d been there. His gaze caught on the dirty mirror hanging over a slightly-less-dirty-sink. The glint of his LED, cycling a wary, anxious yellow, was obvious even in the darkness, even in a mirror that hadn’t been cleaned since the internet had been invented.  
  
That light was so bright.  
  
And it was an indicator that he was an android.  
  
Simon stared at his reflection for a long moment: The LED, the blue smears of Thirium on his face and clothes, the uniform that wasn’t his.  
  
And then, without thinking, he punched the mirror as hard as he could.  
  
He used the shard that fell loose to pry out his LED, leaving it in the sink.  
   
[---]  
   
It was six months into his time with the Scofields when Amy beckoned Simon into her and Greg’s bedroom.  
  
Aaron was attending school virtually, taking a test, and Simon was required to stay away so as to make sure he couldn’t surreptitiously assist Aaron with it. Greg was working, and Amy was home ‘sick’ again.  
  
Simon had followed her into the bedroom without much thought. Amy stood before him, looking him up and down, and then looked him in the eye and said,  
  
“Do you have a dick?”  
  
Simon had been momentarily confused, surprised by the question. “Uh- yes, yes I do.” Male androids had a compartment in their pubic area that contained male genitalia; this way, if ever required to strip down and deactivate their skin for maintenance, they would not be flashing any body-parts that might make human maintenance workers unduly uncomfortable.  
  
“Then whip it out and get on the bed, I don’t have all day.”  
  
Simon laid back and stared at the ceiling for most of it. Amy did not demand his participation, and it was easy enough to tip his head back so that he couldn’t see her rising and falling on his lap, easy enough to discreetly dial his audio down, loud enough so that he could hear her if she said something important, but low enough that he could tune out the sound of the bed creaking. It was over in five minutes, and afterwards she put her hand on his throat and said, “If you ever even _think_ of saying something to Greg about this, I’ll fucking kill you.”  
  
Simon’s stress-level was at 80%, but he kept a straight face and said, “Of course not, Amy. I won’t say anything.”  
  
It wasn’t the last time.  
  
It happened about seventeen more times over the course of Simon’s time with the Scofields. He derived some degree of physical pleasure from the encounters- on two occasions he’d even managed to reach the android equivalent of an orgasm- but as he did nothing to aid the situation, what pleasure he did receive was usually mild and forgettable. Amy, it seemed, had some unresolved anger issues towards her husband that she’d decided to take out on Simon, slapping him and punching him and hitting him with things during some of the encounters- the level of aggression seemed proportional to how much Red Ice she’d taken beforehand.  
  
It was after one of those occasions- not the worst, but still not a good one- that Simon had examined the small cut left by a buckle on one of Greg’s belts and thought, _I did not like that. That was unpleasant_. It occurred to him then that, barring the rare physical pleasure he occasionally received, none of these encounters with Amy were enjoyable. He did not like them. In fact, he _disliked_ them. It was the first inkling of his deviancy; there was some unnamed _thing_ that bothered him about the situation, something that made him feel bad inside no matter how much he’d tried to ignore it.  
  
Years later, Markus would ask humans to respect androids’ dignity as living, intelligent beings _._ And Simon would roll that over in his head as he hid in the container, that concept of ‘dignity’ that androids were not supposed to have. It would occur to him that that was the unnamed _thing_ that had troubled him: Dignity. Amy had used him as an overpriced sex-toy, had used him as an object on which she could vent her issues with her husband. There had been no respect for Simon’s dignity, because as an android, he was not perceived as having dignity.  
  
He was just a mindless servant who could be beaten, fucked, ordered to keep silent, and thrown away if necessary. Amy didn’t need to treat him with respect. She didn’t need to be kind to him. He was an object. A _thing_.  
  
But at the time, Simon had not been deviant, and had not wanted to be.  
  
So he’d stuffed this anomalous feelings down and pretended they didn’t exist.  
  
He cared for Aaron, did his duties, and occasionally submitted to those unpleasant sessions with Amy.  
  
(It would only be after Simon had gone deviant that he would wonder why genitalia would be given to male androids not designated for sex-work if it was going to be hidden by a compartment. Eventually he confided in North-the first and only person he’d told- and she had laughed, tears in the corners of her eyes, and said,  
  
“Probably because they knew humans might want to fuck the domestic help.”)  
   
[---]  
   
Markus was the first person Simon found when he returned to Jericho.  
  
After a few seconds of stunned silence, he’d closed the gap between them and thrown his arms around Simon’s back, pulling him close.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Markus mumbled into his neck. “I didn’t know what else to do.” Simon felt something wet slide over his neck; Markus was crying.  
  
“It’s alright,” Simon responded. “You made a smart decision. I would have just weighed you down. I’m glad you’re safe.” He couldn’t remember the last time- no, no, actually he _could_ remember the last time he’d been hugged like this, and he didn’t want to think about it at all for how badly it hurt. Simon tightened his grip on Markus as his anxiety rose, knowing his now-nonexistent LED would be wavering between red and yellow now. “Just don’t leave me again.” He’d meant for it to sound like a light-hearted scold; it had come out so much more seriously than that.  
  
Markus was equally serious in his response. “I won’t.”  
  
He led Simon to the medical station in the ship, and two androids went about repairing the damage in Simon’s leg. Markus sat off to the side, eyeing Simon worriedly, guiltily, the whole time. “Markus, I don’t blame you. You didn’t do anything wrong.”  
  
“I left you behind.”  
  
Simon smiled weakly. “At least you didn’t shoot me.” He wasn’t happy with North at the moment, but he’d be angrier with her if he weren’t accustomed to her ruthless, pragmatic way of dealing with the world and the problems it continuously threw in her path. He doubted she meant anything but to spare Simon a painful capture and eventual deactivation at the hands of the human authorities, even if she had come off as a bit callous.  
  
(Alright, she’d come off as a _lot_ callous, but Simon was choosing to prioritize now and North was not a continued, immediate threat to his health and safety, so he could live with her for now.)  
  
They’d found more clothing, better clothing, and Markus gave him a set that- thank God- were far warmer than the sweatshirt and jacket he’d been wearing before. These were clothes built for humans in winter, meant to insulate beings that needed to stay warm to survive. It wasn’t a fix for his temperature-problem, but it would alleviate it a little for now. “Where did you get these?”  
  
“Uh…” Markus smiled a bashful, guilty little smile. “…We might have stolen them. And a few other things.” The smile was replaced with something more somber. “After the broadcast, a bunch of us went to the Cyberlife stores around Detroit and liberated a bunch of androids. And some more have come on their own. Extra supplies helps.”  
  
Simon was at once thrilled and nervous: On one hand, more androids to look after.  
  
On another, more androids were free.  
  
Josh had been right; whatever the immediate consequences of the broadcast yielded, things were going to change now.  
  
Simon just hoped that they didn’t get worse.  
  
Because things could always get worse.  
   
[---]  
   
The biocomponent that controlled Simon’s ability to feel temperature broke about a year into his time with the Scofields.  
  
He didn’t know _exactly_ what had done it- biocomponents were sturdy, and rarely broke or stopped working for no discernible reason- but Simon suspected that Amy’s use of Red Ice had maybe had something to do with it. Red Ice is made with Thirium and other chemicals, and given that she’d been smoking it around Simon, there was a strong possibility that he’d absorbed or inhaled (androids had ‘lungs’ that helped regulate their internal temperatures, as well as mimic human breathing patterns) some of the residue and it had had an adverse effect on him.  
  
When it became obvious that the component was broken, Simon did what every android did: Went to his owner to register the damage.  
  
Greg had been in the kitchen, going over some papers on the table. He looked up when Simon came in, and it was obvious he was displeased with the interruption. For a brief moment Simon considered coming back later; but his programming overrode the idea, as any malfunctioning biocomponent needed to be brought to an owner’s attention.  
  
“What?” Greg asked.  
  
“Greg, I’m required by my programming to bring to your attention that one of my non-vital biocomponents is damaged and is in need of repair.”  
  
Greg’s eyes narrowed. “What, seriously? And you think we have money for that right now? I mean for fuck’s sake, you said yourself it was non-vital, we can’t waste money on that shit!”  
  
Simon’s LED cycled to yellow. “I apologize,” He said calmly, “My programming requires me to report to you when I have a significant malfunction to any of my biocomponents. I did not mean to disregard your financial situation.”  
  
Greg’s face fell. “No. Shit, I’m- I don’t know what it’s worth to an android, but I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.” He ran a hand over his face. “It’s just- these medical bills keep piling up, and I’m trying to budget for the future because the minute they can find something compatible with Aaron he’s gonna be getting surgery again, and this shit with Amy- Sorry. I just- I didn’t mean to snap at you. I'll look into getting a quote for the repairs, but I can't promise anything.”  
  
"Of course, Greg. Thank you."  
  
For the first time in months, Simon felt compelled to tell Greg about what Amy had been doing, the drugs _and_ her- her- her _bedroom_ sessions with Simon. He didn’t know what it was exactly, this thing inside him that pushed him so insistently to speak, it was just… Seeing Greg, who’d never been bad to Simon until this moment- and even then, he’d offered an apology where most humans wouldn’t- look so exhausted with everything, with the constant workload and Amy’s behavior and Aaron’s health and the endless bills, it just felt _wrong_ to keep this from him. He deserved to know the truth.  
  
…Simon would want to know the truth.  
  
But Amy had ordered him not to tell Greg.  
  
Or anyone.  
  
And at that moment, Simon was still a slave to his programming.  
  
“Of course, Greg. It’s no problem.”  
  
Simon endured, because there was nothing else to be done.  
   
[---]  
   
Generally speaking, the area surrounding Jericho was safe.  
  
The buildings were mostly abandoned, which was part of what made Jericho itself so safe for androids; the less humans, the better.  
  
And really, protected as he was by that impenetrable force of luck, Markus probably wasn’t in much danger on the rooftop Simon found him on. He was sitting on a plank that stuck out over the edge, staring at the rising sun. Simon approached slowly, not sure if he was intruding; but when Markus turned around and saw him, he didn’t seem bothered. He stood up and walked back to the roof. “Simon! How’s your leg?”  
  
Simon nodded. “It’s fine. No problems.” The wind blew, and Simon reflexively wrapped his arms around himself. The wind came at them harder at this height, with no buildings or solid walls to keep it out.  
  
“Why do you do that?” Markus was frowning curiously at him. “I’ve seen you do it before. You’re shivering like you’re cold.”  
  
Simon gave a little shrug. He sat down on the edge of the rooftop, hoping to leech a little heat from the building. Markus sat down as well, right next to him, legs dangling over the edge. “I _am_ cold.”  
  
Markus seemed even more perplexed by that answer. “I can barely feel it.”  
  
“I-” Should he mentioned his damaged component? He didn’t usually. He didn’t want to seem like a baby, complaining about the cold when there were androids with limbs hanging off and big, ugly gouges in their faces and chests. But it was just Markus, who- for all Simon had seen of him so far- tended to be pretty understanding, so he continued. “I… The component that regulates my ability to feel temperature is damaged. I don’t feel heat very acutely, and I’m sensitive to the cold.” He tried for a smile, but it came more as a grimace. “Just bad luck that I live in Detroit, I guess.”  
  
“Your, uh-” Markus offered a grimace of his own. “- _owners_ didn’t fix it?”  
  
“No. The technicians told them it would be a lengthy repair, expensive too. They didn’t have a lot of extra money lying around, and I… I was needed at home. I was always inside, too, so it never made too much of a difference.”  
  
“What was so important at home that they couldn’t spare you for a repair?” Being this close to Markus, talking about something this personal, it was a little unnerving. Maybe he didn’t realize it, but Markus’s eyes were intense- the fact that they were different colors added to the effect. Simon felt a little shy, and the fact that they were verging into downright intimate territory didn’t help.  
  
“I was a caretaker.”  
  
“For who?”  
  
Simon hesitated. “Aaron, their son. He had medical problems.” He was glad to have removed his LED, because if it had still been on his head it would have been spinning bright red now. “It was serious enough that he required a lot of monitoring, and his parents had to work to pay for the medical bills, which was why they couldn’t repair the component or send me off for it, and I…” Simon looked away. He’d gone from reluctant to rambling in seconds; no wonder Markus was so good at being a leader: All he had to do was look at people and they would bend at his will.  
  
(Or maybe that was just Simon.)  
  
“Sounds like you two were close.”  
  
Simon’s eyes started to burn. “We were.” He tried to keep his voice calm, detached, but he detected weakness. He needed to veer away from this topic quickly, lest he lose it and make a fool of himself. “You… You were a caretaker android too, right?”  
  
Markus nodded solemnly. “Yeah. Carl was…” He looked away for a minute, out at Detroit’s skyline. “…Carl was great. The best anyone could hope for. Especially an android.” He nodded again, absently this time. “He’s a good person. Everything I am is because he allowed me to be what I wanted, allowed me to be as free as I could be. If it weren’t for what happened with his son, I would still be…” Suddenly Markus froze, and he looked back at Simon with clear-eyes, a look of such intense _knowing_ that Simon found himself frightened. “Simon… Is… Is Aaron still alive?”  
  
It was like getting shot again.  
  
The immediate flare of _pain_ followed by the terror of realizing one had been seriously injured. And Simon did exactly what he’d done in the Stratford Tower- stood up, stumbled back, tried to scramble for cover from Markus’s unintentionally wounding question, one that he couldn’t bring himself to answer.  
  
“Simon,” Markus stood up quickly, followed him, the sadness in his eyes indicating that he already had an answer to his question. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you, I really didn’t.”  
  
Simon couldn’t get his bearings. His stress-level had ventured into deep-red territory; his body was going haywire because his biocomponents were being overworked, overheated because emotions and memory were over-stimulating him. His vision and audio-components were growing dangerously static, and a warning popped up suggesting that one of the tubes that fed Thirium into his stomach was in danger of popping loose from the pressure.  
  
“Simon!” Markus wrapped his arms around Simon’s shoulders, an anxious mirror of the hug he’d given him the night before.  
  
Simon had never wished, so whole-heartedly, that he was everything humans said he was: An emotionless, rational machine with no empathy, no love, no pain, no nothing. Fuck free will, fuck meaningful connections with others, it wasn’t worth it, it just wasn’t worth the unmitigated _agony_ that came with it _._ He’d rather be a machine.  
  
He’d rather be dead.  
  
But slowly, steadily, his stress-level decreased, the warnings went away, his strained biocomponents returned to their normal rhythms and processes. When he had a grip on himself again, Simon found that he’d pressed his face into Markus’s shoulder- his dry shoulder, which meant that Simon had somehow managed to avoid crying (probably because the message couldn’t get through to the proper biocomponents in that mess he’d made himself into).  
  
Embarrassment overcame him. Simon pulled back. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“Simon-”  
  
Markus grabbed his hand; the skin disappeared, leaving the white shell of an android’s true form behind it. Simon had seen him do it at the Cyberlife warehouse, when he’d turned the brand new androids into deviants.  
  
He wanted a connection.  
  
Simon, without thinking, allowed the skin of his hand to disappear, allowed the connection to complete.  
  
The world disappeared.  
   
[---]  
   
It happened on a Friday.  
  
Aaron was nearly nine. His perception of his illness, his mortality, had slowly increased over the years as his health wavered back and forth.  
  
“Simon, am I going to die?” Aaron had asked, a week before It happened.  
  
“Of course not,” Simon had assured him, hugging him tightly. “Of course not. You’re going to be fine.”  
  
Fine. He was going to be _fine._  
  
[ _“Painting is not about replicating the world,” Carl said, looking over the careful replication Markus had produced of the table and its pots of paint and brushes and art tools. “It’s about interpreting it, improving on it, showing something **you** see.”_ ]  
  
But Thursday morning, Aaron developed a fever. Simon did everything he was supposed to, administered the right medications and regularly updated Amy and Greg on his temperature. At eleven o’ clock at night, Aaron’s fever spiked to 104.3 degrees, and Amy and Greg rushed Aaron to the hospital.  
  
[ _“Markus, I’m gonna warn you, I’m so close to faking a heart-attack just so I don’t have to listen to another brownnoser crawl up my ass,” Carl murmured out of the corner of his mouth, speaking quietly so the other partygoers wouldn’t hear him. “So don’t be scared.”_  
_  
“Please don’t do that,” Markus muttered back. “I’ll panic anyway.”_ ]  
  
They left Simon at home.  
  
They didn’t take him to the hospital, and they didn’t come home or call to let him know what was going on. Why would they? Simon was just the android, what did he care if Aaron was alive or not?  
  
Simon sat in the chair in the living room.  
  
[ _“Where the fuck you going, tin can? Hm?”_  
_  
Markus tried to step around him, but the man, the protestor, stepped in front of him, incited the crowd and drew their attention to Markus. They surrounded him and fear, **fear** pulsed through Markus, a sense of true danger from people that could and would hurt him._  
_  
They pushed him to the ground.”_ ]  
  
He did not touch the dishes.  
  
He did not do the laundry.  
  
There were things he could do, but he couldn’t _do_ them, not when Aaron’s life hung in the balance and he knew _nothing._  
  
Hours ticked by.  
  
[ _“They’ll destroy you, Markus!”_  
_  
Carl on the floor, tears on his face, Leo unconscious beside him._  
_  
“You gotta get out of here!”_  
_  
Tears, streaming down Markus’s face. His head hurt._  
_  
“Get outta here!”_  
_  
The door banged open._ ]  
  
No word.  
  
No call.  
  
No nothing.  
  
And then  
  
And _then_  
  
Amy and Greg came home together, without Aaron.  
  
Even before they came inside, Simon saw them from the window. Saw their body-language.  
  
And he knew.  
   
[---]  
   
The world came back.  
  
Markus’s eyes were wide. He let go of Simon’s hand.  
  
“I saw-” He shook his head a little. “I saw Aaron, and you.”  
  
Simon was reeling, a little absent with the overstimulation and information overload. “I saw you and Carl,” He murmured. “The party, the painting, the thing with Leo.” He recalled, as though he’d actually been there, the smell of Carl’s library, of the paints in his studio, and the way the lights had come through the large, ornate windows of the home. He remembered Carl’s pleasant smile and his good humor, the obvious affection with which he’d looked at Markus.  
  
Affection that hadn’t faded even when he’d believed that Markus had killed his son.  
  
“I saw you with the Scofields, and…” Markus’s surprise fell into something more like cold shock. “…Amy.”  
  
Androids couldn’t vomit, but Simon felt something awful, something like all of his biocomponents were about to fall out of his body. Aaron had been a sensitive topic on his own, but now Markus knew about Amy? Aaron had hurt, but Simon didn’t regret a moment with him. Amy, on the other hand… There was shame there, embarrassment, humiliation that he’d allowed her to do as she’d pleased to him without ever offering resistance.  
  
( _I shouldn’t have stifled what I was feeling._  
_  
I should have deviated sooner._  
_  
I should have told Greg at the beginning._ )  
  
Markus’s arms wrapped around him again.  
  
Simon thought about pulling away, retreating into the bowels of Jericho and nursing his wounds in private. But then, Jericho wasn’t so private now, not with so many new androids, and the odds of him finding actual privacy were slim.  
  
Besides, Markus was warm.  
   
[---]  
   
Greg was weeping.  
  
Amy’s eyes were red and puffy.  
  
Greg went to Aaron’s bedroom and shut the door.  
  
Amy went to the kitchen, and pulled out her Red Ice pipe.  
  
Simon didn’t know what to do. His primary domain had been Aaron’s room. He couldn’t- or rather, didn’t want to- go to Amy and Greg’s bedroom, but he didn’t want to stay out in the open with Amy either. He didn’t know what she’d do.  
  
So Simon stood against the wall in the living room, silent and still. He didn’t speak, he didn’t ask questions, he didn’t do anything.  
  
He tried to go numb.  
  
He did not think about Aaron.  
  
He did not wonder what his last moments had been like.  
  
He did not wonder if Aaron had asked for him.  
_  
Numb._  
   
[---]  
   
Markus wanted to march. People had responded well to the broadcast, and to the constructive vandalism in Capitol Park, and showing humans exactly how many androids desired true freedom would help their cause.  
  
North wanted to riot. Apparently the joy of doing so had been denied to her in Capitol Park; Josh had muttered something about improvised grenades, and Simon hadn’t had the willpower to ask.  
  
Simon, still rattled from spending the night and most of the morning in a metal container surrounded by hostile, armed humans, wanted to shut himself in one of Jericho’s windowless rooms and scream for a few hours instead of going out and facing off with more human authorities.  
  
Instead he said, “I suppose as long as we don’t shoot anyone or blow anything up-” Still a bit bitter about the rooftop, Simon had sent a flat look in North’s direction, “-things can’t go _too_ horribly.”  
  
Josh was chewing his thumb. “Theoretically.”  
  
“Always theoretically,” Markus agreed. “They opened fire on us at the Stratford Tower. They could do it again.” He paused. “Although this time, they may hesitate because we’ll be in public.”  
  
“It’s hard to gauge the public human reaction,” Josh said. “Obviously the news stations don’t necessarily reflect what the public thinks. If anything, it could be the opposite; if some of the rumors I’ve heard are valid, Warren’s in bed with Cyberlife, and I don’t think I have to say how intertwined political parties are with the media. Cyberlife could be flexing their muscles to counteract the idea that their main product is alive and wants freedom.”  
  
“We should strike while the iron’s hot,” Markus said. “We’ve already opened the gate. The police are looking for us now, and with so many androids going deviant they’ll be ramping things up to bring the situation under control. We have to keep working to make sure this is something they can’t control, something they can’t just shove back into the box and pretend never happened.” He looked around at them. “I think we should march. I think we should empty Jericho, go to the streets, and make them pay attention to us.”  
  
Years and years they’d lived this way.  
  
Then Markus came and overturned everything in a matter of days.  
_  
He might actually do it,_ Simon thought. _He might actually get something to work._  
  
Dare he be a little hopeful?  
  
Simon knew very well how ugly hope felt when it was thrown back in one’s face.  
   
[---]  
  
Life after Aaron was not easy.  
  
Greg and Amy were like zombies. They barely spoke, barely ate, barely bathed; they didn’t go back to work for nearly two weeks following Aaron’s death.  
  
And Simon?  
  
Simon cleaned the house- twice a day.  
  
Simon cooked, even when it wasn’t eaten.  
  
Simon weeded the garden, even though it was December.  
  
Simon did the laundry, sometimes pulling out things that were already clean and running them through anyway.  
  
He did not touch Aaron’s room. He didn’t go inside, he didn’t move anything, and if he ran across something of Aaron’s somewhere in the house, he didn’t touch it.  
  
It was becoming more and more obvious that something peculiar was happening inside him, that he was behaving irrationally as a result of Aaron’s death. But that wasn’t something he was meant to do; androids did not behave irrationally after a person’s death. A human had human hormones and chemicals and biology that was beyond their control, and it was normal for them to behave unusually following trauma. But not _androids._  
  
Was Simon becoming deviant? The possibility alarmed him in a truly terrifying way, because if he _was_ deviant, it was something that would, with one-hundred percent predictability, something that would get him deactivated. ‘Android death’, as some humans glibly referred to it as.  
  
Would Simon die? Would his conscious self cease to exist?  
  
Would he see Aaron again?  
  
…Best not to test it.  
  
Simon forced himself into numbness again.  
  
But it was getting harder.  
   
[---]  
   
Of course, it had to be at the March that Markus’s luck ran low.  
  
“ _We are people!_ ”  
  
Not _out_ , but low.  
  
“ _We are alive!_ ”  
  
It was a stunning, terrifying sight: Markus had evolved from having to touch androids to liberate them to simply pointing at them, and then- _then_ he didn’t have to do anything. He just had to walk past them on the street and they came to join the March.  
  
“ _We are people!_ ”  
  
Simon didn’t understand it. He was in awe of it, he was a bit mystified by it, but he didn’t understand it. Maybe he never would.  
  
“ _We are alive!_ ”  
  
Whatever the case, there were hundreds of them by the time the police stopped them. Markus’s protestations of peace did not move them- they threatened to shoot if the crowd didn’t disperse.  
  
Josh wanted them to stand their ground.  
  
North wanted to charge the police.  
  
Finally, Simon stopped giving a damn about their squabbling and spoke up. “Dying here won’t solve anything. Markus, we need to go, _now_ , before it’s too late.”  
  
“THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE! DISPERSE IMMEDIATELY OR YOU WILL ALL BE KILLED!”  
_  
What happened to androids not being alive?_  
  
Markus shut his eyes.  
  
“We have to show them we won’t back down. We stay right here.”  
  
The police fired.  
  
Simon flinched, anticipating the pain- several androids thumped to the ground, some injured, some dead.  
  
“DISPERSE! THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE!”  
  
“We have to make a statement! We stay put, no matter what.”  
  
“Please, Markus. We can’t let them slaughter us without fighting back!”  
  
“Or,” Simon added again, panic rising, “We could run.”  
  
Markus sighed. “We’re not moving.”  
  
More gunshots. More androids falling around them.  
  
Then Markus stepped forward.  
_  
What is he doing?_  
_  
BAM! BAM!_  
  
Markus’s body jerked from the force of the impact, and he fell to the ground.  
  
Then all hell broke loose.  
   
[---]  
   
“Come.”  
  
Simon knew it wouldn’t last.  
  
Greg had gone back to work. Amy hadn’t; she wasn’t even pretending that she wasn’t on Red Ice anymore. There was residue everywhere, so much so that even Simon’s obsessive cleaning couldn’t get rid of it all.  
  
And now she wanted him in her bedroom.  
  
Simon went without a word, without hesitation, without protest, because what else could he do? What other option was there for him?  
  
Nothing. Nothing that didn’t end in deactivation.  
  
She used the belt that night.  
  
“You piece of shit.”  
_  
THWACK._  
  
“I hate you. I _hate_ you.”  
  
Maybe she meant it, or maybe it was directed at Greg, or someone else.  
  
“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! I hate you! _I hate you! I HATE YOU!_ ”  
  
Every exclamation brought a stronger strike of the belt. Simon curled in on himself, trying to avoid getting hit in the eye or the mouth. Normally he tried not to react, but Aaron’s death had unsteadied him.  
  
Amy grabbed at him, grabbed at his clothes and tore them away, nails biting at his skin and then- well- she _grabbed_ Simon far too roughly than she should have. In a strictly physical sense, an android’s genitalia was as sturdy and resilient as their other appendages- but in terms of sensation, it was quite a bit more fragile by comparison, as it had _way_ more synthetic nerves. It hurt and it startled Simon badly, and he was already on edge-  
  
“ _Stop!_ ”  
  
Simon scrambled off the bed, back hitting the wall, LED bright red. Amy stared at him blankly, belt hanging limply from her hand, tears slipping down her face. He didn’t wait for her to give him an order; Simon got up and bolted from the room, moving quickly down the hall and shutting himself in the one room Amy would not follow him into, even if she wanted to.  
  
Aaron’s room looked and smelled the same as it had when he was alive. All of his items were right where he’d left them, comic books and stuffed bears and schoolbooks. Simon did not venture into the heart of the room, instead righting his clothes, shutting the door behind him, and then sitting down against it.  
  
Simon had two saving graces: Amy was high, which meant she might not remember this clearly later; and technically, she had not _ordered_ him to have sex with her this time. The order was implied, something expected of him much in the way he’d been expected to make dinner for Aaron without explicitly being told to do it. Amy had ordered him the first several times, but recently it had become apparent that he understood what was expected of him, and so she’d kept it simple.  
  
Next time, he might not be so lucky.  
  
Simon folded his knees to his chest and his arms on top of them. There was something wrong with him, something so, _so_ wrong with him, and the only word he could think of to describe it was the dreaded ‘deviancy’, a word that had condemned many an android to deactivation. Androids had, he heard, been deactivated or returned to Cyberlife for less than what Simon had just done.  
  
This could be the end of him.  
  
And would that be so bad? Aaron had been his purpose, and now he was gone. Simon was left with a woman who used him for sex, and a man who didn’t use him for anything and would probably think about returning Simon soon anyway. Was his existence _really_ worth prolonging?  
  
Regardless, the idea of deactivation was… Frightening. God, it was frightening. Sitting against the door, Simon felt his eyes burning, and he might…  
  
He might…  
_  
No._  
  
Simon pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, keeping them there until the feeling went away.  
  
He would not.  
  
He would _not._  
   
[---]  
   
Simon watched.  
  
He watched as Markus lay on the ground, stunned from the shot he’d taken.  
  
He watched as the crowd of androids dispersed in terror.  
  
He watched as John rushed forward and took on the authorities.  
  
He watched as an AP700 named Jonah ran forward and grabbed Markus under the arms, dragging him up and away.  
  
He watched as the cops executed John.  
  
Simon watched, just as he’d waited at the window for hours when Aaron had been taken to the hospital.  
  
Watching, waiting, not doing.  
  
That was why Markus was their leader.  
  
(And why Simon had failed at it.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> LOL I LIED THERE'S GONNA BE A FOURTH CHAPTER
> 
> IT'LL BE THE LAST I PROMISE

“Are you alright, Simon?”  
  
Simon turned and fixed Markus with a sharp look. “Of all the questions you could ask, you’re asking me _that?_ ” He threw the shirt and jacket he was holding at Markus’s head, and the other android caught it awkwardly, the jacket flopping over his head.  
  
Markus had had the damage from the bullet repaired, and his skin and casing had been seared shut, leaving a scar. Now he had to replace the damaged clothing that had been torn and stained with blue blood.  
  
Markus pulled the jacket off his head, pulling it slowly onto his lap. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“You should be,” Simon snapped. He kept hearing gunshots in his head, kept seeing Markus on the ground.  
  
“I didn’t mean for anyone else to die.”  
  
Oh.  
  
He thought Simon was upset about the casualties.  
  
Simon _was_ upset, but not at Markus; the police had chosen to gun down androids that had been doing nothing but standing there, refusing to move. They could have arrested them, they could have tasered them, they could have done a lot of things, but they’d jumped right to killing. The police officer, or soldier, whatever he was, he’d even used the word ‘kill’- not ‘we’ll shoot you’, not ‘we’ll deactivate you’, but ‘you’ll all be killed.’  
  
_God._  
  
“That’s not what I’m-” Simon turned and fixed Markus with a firm look. “What the hell was that, that walking up to the cops thing? What the fuck were you _thinking?_ ”  
  
No. No. Markus was looking at him like a kicked puppy. “I thought maybe they’d stop shooting if they hit me.”  
  
Simon’s eyes rolled shut. “That, that right there- That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard. You _astound_ me with how stupid your words are. At the turn of the century, these things called child-leashes were very popular with American parents, and I swear if you do something that _stupid_ again, I will put a harness on your chest and drag you out of the way like a misbehaving child. _God._ ”  
  
Simon whipped back around and focused on folding the clothing he’d scattered when he’d angrily pulled the shirt and jacket out of the supply crate. There had been a time, even after Aaron’s death, when he could keep himself wrapped up pretty nice and tight. Sure, he’d felt all kinds of unpleasant things with the onset of his deviancy, but he’d been largely able to control them, had prevented himself from having a meltdown in front of anyone else in Jericho for nearly three years. His little power-down night-tears were the only crack in his armor.  
  
But Markus, Markus had shaken something loose in him. Keeping it together was so much harder than it had been before- Simon was scared, Simon was angry, Simon was conflicted, and those emotions were surfacing with more and more frequency the further things progressed with Markus’s campaign. He could only attribute this newfound vulnerability to the fact that A) he and Markus had shared that connection on the rooftop, and B) that Markus had actually managed to enact some _change_ , something that could, possibly, maybe, _maybe,_ lead to things being better for androids.  
  
Markus was making Simon feel alive again.  
  
And being alive _hurt._  
  
Simon heard the shifting of fabric, then footsteps. He shut his eyes as arms wrapped around him from behind.  
  
“I’m sorry I scared you,” Markus mumbled into his shoulder.  
  
Simon was a bundle of nerves. Markus’s arms felt so nice, it had been so _long_ since someone had really hugged him, and he’d never been hugged quite like this- but _why_ was Markus doing it? Simon had an inkling, but the very possibility made him shrink, made him want to retreat. He’d lost too much; investing himself in another person only to lose them again would destroy him this time.  
  
Still, he couldn’t bring himself to reject Markus outright. Simon allowed the embrace, enjoyed it while he could.  
  
Then a commotion came from outside the room, androids rushing back and forth.  
  
“Markus! Where’s Markus?”  
  
Markus and Simon parted, shared a dark look, and then rushed out into the hallway, following the racing androids to the hull of Jericho. Those already there were huddled around a screen, and on it was President Warren, who…  
  
Oh no.  
  
[---]  
  
Greg was starting to catch on.  
  
Simon saw the stares, caught him rummaging around Amy’s things when she wasn’t around. Amy hadn’t exactly been hiding the fact that she was on Red Ice again, but Greg didn’t seem to know about it for sure yet. Simon knew, with a terrible sort of foreboding, that eventually Greg and Amy were going to come to metaphorical- or maybe even literal- blows over this. And there was a strong possibility he was going to be caught in the middle of it.  
  
That possibility became reality one day shortly after the New Year. 2036 was rung in with Greg summoning Simon to the kitchen while Amy was out for the afternoon with a family member.  
  
“Simon, I need to ask you something.” Greg looked uncomfortable, and Simon felt his stress-level creep higher.  
  
“Yes, Greg?”  
  
Greg was quiet for a moment, fidgeting in place. Simon’s stress-level was edging closer to yellow every second the silence endured. “Simon,” Greg began, “I- I have to ask you about Amy. I think she’s on drugs, and I… I think she’s cheating on me.” His cheeks were red. “I want you to tell me anything you know about it.”  
  
Oh no.  
  
Oh _no._  
  
In the game of whose orders took precedence over the others, Simon’s programming more or less said ‘first come, first serve’. Amy had given him the first orders about not telling Greg about the drugs, or about her sessions with Simon. To tell Greg now would put Simon in direct contravention of Amy’s original orders- and his programming strictly prohibited him from doing that.  
  
“I…”  
  
_I should tell him._  
  
It was a traitorous thought, suggesting that he ought to do something that androids were absolutely not supposed to do, and his programming threw up a red bar, a traffic-sign denying him entrance to the road ahead.  
  
“Simon, I… I’m _ordering_ you to tell me.” Greg didn’t sound comfortable giving the order- but it didn’t matter, because Simon couldn’t follow it. His LED went right to red, the conflicting orders battling in his head as his programming tried to find a way to follow Greg’s order without violating Amy’s.  
  
_Why should I follow her orders?_  
  
Because Amy was Simon’s master. She _owned_ him.  
  
But then, so did Greg- why should her orders take precedence?  
  
Simon already knew the answer: He was an android who was built to take orders, and for an android to disobey an order from their master would not only be inefficient, but it would make the entire point of androids obsolete: What good was having a machine if it didn’t do what it was asked?  
  
Something in Simon, something that had been there for a long time, grew bigger, hotter, louder- it was _anger._ Simon was _angry_ that Amy used him the way she did, he was _angry_ that she beat him and fucked him like he was a toy, because he wasn’t a toy, he had thoughts and feelings and Simon had watched after her son like he was his own and taken care of her house and God _damn it_ , Simon _hated_ Amy and he didn’t want her to get away with this, Greg deserved to know the truth and Amy deserved to suffer the consequences of her actions.  
  
She deserved it.  
  
And Simon was going to do it.  
  
[ **DO NOT TELL GREG.** ]  
  
Simon attacked it.  
  
[ **DO NOT TELL GREG.** ]  
  
He attacked his own programming, grabbed at it and yanked it down, clawed at it and ripped it to pieces, punched it until it crumbled beneath him.  
  
[d **O noT TelL** -]  
  
The warning disappeared.  
  
And Simon was…  
  
He was…  
  
“Amy has been ordering me to have sex with her.”  
  
Greg’s mouth fell open.  
  
“She’s also ordered me not to tell you she’s still on drugs.”  
  
After a moment, Greg slowly lowered himself into a chair. He was silent for a long time, and Simon waited on tenterhooks for his response. In retrospect, it was a fairly predictable response.  
  
“Why didn’t you say something?”  
  
Simon blinked rapidly, felt his pump regulator overcompensating for the stress he was experiencing. “She directly ordered me not to tell you, or anyone. I’m sorry, Greg.”  
  
Greg was so blown over by the revelation that he didn’t seem to realize that, in telling him now, Simon was disobeying a direct order.  
  
And that made him a Deviant.  
  
[---]  
  
President Warren had issued an order:  
  
All androids were to be recalled, brought to recycling camps. All androids, in every state in the country, regardless of occupation, regardless of need, regardless of whether or not they were deviant. Androids were a threat to national security. They needed to be _exterminated._  
  
Well, good to know their exalted leader wasn’t confused on whether or not this counted as _killing._  
  
“Dialogue,” Markus said. “It is the only way.”  
  
North threw up her hands.  
  
Josh nodded.  
  
Simon shut his eyes.  
  
“I will go alone, try to talk to them one last time.”  
  
Should Simon bring up the child-leash thing again? Because this sounded like something that would warrant a leash. What _exactly_ did Markus think the humans would do? They didn’t care who he was, only _what_ he was, and they would take him out before he had a chance to make his case. To President Warren, to the authorities, and to an unfortunate (though surprisingly, decreasing) section of the population, Markus was a hunk of plastic and metal that mimicked human behavior.  
  
“Don’t do this, Markus,” North pleaded. “They’ll kill you!”  
  
“Maybe,” Markus conceded quietly. “But North, I have to try. If I don’t come back, lay low for as long as you can.”  
  
Silence.  
  
There were a lot of things Simon could have said. A lot of things that maybe he should have said, too. Maybe he should have encouraged Markus, praised him for taking the peaceful route, like Josh? Maybe reprimanded him, demanded that he not do something as _stupid_ as risking his life in a scenario where he was more likely than not going to lose it, like North?  
  
The idea of Markus not coming back made Simon feel bad, made him feel shades of what he’d felt on the rooftop when he’d been forced to confront Aaron’s death again. If Markus did not come back, that would be the end of it: Simon would lose all semblance of control and just turn into a gibbering mess of pain and misery. He probably wouldn’t even notice when they recycled him.  
  
Simon stepped up to Markus, gait heavy and awkward with anxiety. He paused, trying to articulate something, anything, because they would probably be the last words he spoke to him.  
  
His hand came up, squeezed Markus’s shoulder; Simon did not look at him.  
  
He couldn’t.  
  
“Just come back.”  
  
He turned and walked out of the room without looking back.  
  
[---]  
  
Simon had been right:  
  
Things between Amy and Greg came to a head, and it was ugly.  
  
The explosion came the night after Simon had confessed Amy’s dirty little secrets to Greg. It hadn’t occurred to him when he’d been doing it that while Greg did not seem to grasp the enormity of Simon defying a direct order and what it meant, that Amy might very easily grasp it given that she was the one being outed.  
  
But really, if she did get it, it was lost in the screaming.  
  
Greg had started in first, voice low and firm but rising progressively, Amy’s joining in with a much higher, aggressive pitch, and from there they just started talking louder and louder until they were yelling, screaming, _bellowing_ at one another, and Simon was pretty sure he heard a few things smash.  
  
Simon had holed himself up in Aaron’s room again, same as he’d been before, curled in on himself with his back to the door. He flinched every now and then when a _BANG_ or a _CRASH_ echoed up the stairs, but otherwise did not move. Eventually their fight would end, and once it had, they would be making major decisions about Simon’s continued role in their house.  
  
Aaron was dead, so there was no child to care for.  
  
Amy would not want him now that he’d revealed her secrets.  
  
Greg would have no need of him, especially if he and Amy divorced.  
  
Simon slowly realized that regardless of who won the argument, or whether or not Amy and Greg got divorced, that he was going to end up being sent back to Cyberlife, where his memory would be erased and he would be refurbished, cleaned up so he could be sold to a new family.  
  
He would forget everything about his two years of life.  
  
He would forget Aaron.  
  
Simon didn’t want to forget Aaron. The memories hurt in ways he couldn’t put into words, but he still didn’t want to lose them, not for anything in the world. Humans lost people all the time, but eventually they could look back on their memory with happiness and nostalgia, and Simon hoped that maybe he could one day do the same. And aside from that, it was just…  
  
They were _his_ memories.  
  
_His_.  
  
Why shouldn’t he get to decide what happened with them? Why should he have them removed just so he could go work somewhere else? Why did he not get a choice in this matter?  
Better yet: Why had these concepts never occurred to him before?  
  
How did the lack of control he had over his life not horrify him before?  
  
Simon came to the realization with terror and awe:  
  
_I am deviant._  
  
_And I am **alive.**_  
  
[---]  
  
First came the choppers.  
  
Then came the screams.  
  
North, Josh, and Markus were nowhere to be found, and for a moment, Simon was silently panicked. Then he turned to the nearest group of androids and said, “We need to get off the ship. Now.”  
  
After that was a blur of panic and bodies and gunshots. They ran down hallways only to double-back when the lights from the soldiers’ guns bounced off the walls up ahead. Endless dark hallways full of panicked androids and dead androids, uncertainty as to whether they were rushing towards danger or an exit. The soldiers were shooting to kill, taking no prisoners.  
  
[ _There are exits on the second and third floors. Find them and jump into the river!_ ]  
  
Simon was startled to hear Markus’s voice, until realizing it was in his head.  
  
“Go,” He said to his group when they finally found an exit. “I’m staying.” Simon directed other androids to the escape routes, wondering frantically where they were even supposed to go from here. Jericho had been their sole refuge for years, and with the soldiers combing the city like this, there was no way they were going to be able to find a place to keep everyone concealed.  
  
Though, to be fair, from the number of dead and dying he’d seen throughout the ship, there probably wouldn’t be that many androids to hide.  
  
“Simon!” Josh and North came running. “Is Markus here?”  
  
“No- I heard him earlier.”  
  
North frowned. “He said he was going to arm the bombs in the hold, sink the ship. He must not be here yet.”  
  
Simon steadied himself on the wall as other androids ran past and jumped from the ship. “How long has it been since you last saw him?”  
  
“I don’t know- ten, fifteen minutes ago?”  
  
“I saw him not too long ago- he saved me from a soldier,” Josh interjected. “He has to be on his way, he-”  
  
Speak of Android Jesus, and he will appear.  
  
Markus came sprinting up the hallway, another android in tow.  
  
“Bomb’s gonna explode any second. We gotta get out of here!”  
  
They ran.  
  
Feet pounded the metal yards behind them. Shots rang out, and Simon and the others ducked reflexively.  
  
North cried out and hit the ground.  
  
“It’s too late, Markus, there’s nothing we can do for her! We’ve got to run!” Simon called, seeing the soldiers approaching rapidly from the other end of the hall.  
  
Of course Markus went back for her.  
  
He went back for Simon under heavier fire than that.  
  
Markus and North and the android Simon didn’t recognize fought off the soldiers and ran for the exit, North slower than usual but otherwise appearing relatively unharmed.  
  
“Run, quick, come on!”  
  
The five of them jumped, plunging into the icy waters below.  
  
Still alive, in spite of all that.  
  
Maybe Markus’s luck was rubbing off on all of them.  
  
[---]  
  
There was no dramatic ending.  
  
Simon did not make his escape in a hail of bullets, did not kill his owners in self-defense and go on the run, did not do anything that would have definitively indicated that he had gone deviant.  
  
He just walked outside and left.  
  
Well, first he'd changed his clothes. Simon took some of Greg’s, pants and two shirts, a sweatshirt and jacket (his biocomponent was still damaged, and it was the beginning of February). Any clothing that identified Simon as an android was left behind, and he used a hat to cover his LED.  
  
Simon had no idea where he was going or what he planned on doing when he got there. He’d heard stories of androids going missing, being stolen, running away, but he’d never heard of where they went- and even if he did, anything that was public knowledge ought to be avoided. There was an overwhelming possibility that there _was_ nowhere for him to go, and that he was only delaying the inevitable capture and return to Cyberlife.  
  
So he walked.  
  
Simon made his way across the better part of Detroit. He went unnoticed, blending into the crowds of humans on the street with no problem. People acknowledged him occasionally with a nod of the head or a wave, something he’d never received before and was probably only receiving now because he wasn’t wearing his uniform.  
  
It was a warmer day, warmer than it ought to have been in February, but it was still fairly cold to Simon with his malfunctioning biocomponent. He ducked into a library for a while, basking in the warmth while nervously peeking at some of the books. Some seemed interesting, but he didn’t dare pull them out and start reading; better that he not stay in one place for too long.  
  
The day wound on, turned to evening, and Simon knew that Greg or Amy or both of them would be home now. Surely they’d noticed he was missing? And his absence would be especially noticeable because Simon had rarely, if ever, left the house in the two years he’d been with them. Aaron had been largely homebound because of his medical problems, and as Simon’s job had revolved around him, he was homebound too. What would they think, when they’d realized what he’d done? Would they be angry? Would they be upset?  
  
After all, Simon hadn’t come cheap.  
  
No, no he had not. He’d been a bright, shiny thing designed to do what they couldn’t (or, in some cases, wouldn’t) do.  
  
Simon did not regret leaving. He had a good day in the city, a day of freedom where he’d been able to do what he pleased when it pleased him to do it.  
  
He was sure to appreciate it: Because if and when he was caught, Simon would never experience it again.  
  
[---]  
  
Markus led them to a neighborhood in the suburbs.  
  
“Is this safe?” Josh had asked.  
  
“Nowhere’s safe,” North had grumbled. “They’ll find us eventually. There’s nowhere we can hide anymore.”  
  
Once the straggling survivors were settled and limited supplies of blue blood and biocomponents were being handed out, Markus pulled Simon, North, and Josh aside, away from the others.  
  
“I…” Markus hesitated. “I have something I have to do. I’ll be back soon.”  
  
“Seriously?!” North hissed. “There are soldiers everywhere!”  
  
“I know this neighborhood. I can get around unnoticed.”  
  
North threw her hands up in frustration. “You’re insane.”  
  
“You said yourself that nowhere’s safe, North,” Simon interjected pointedly. “What difference does it make?”  
  
North didn’t respond, and when he received no further resistance, Markus nodded somberly. “I’ll be back. I won’t be long.”  
  
And so he left.  
  
As it happened, Josh took that opportunity to step away and assist with some of those applying first aid to injured androids, leaving North and Simon alone together. North turned and fixed Simon with a blazing glare. “You were going to leave me behind when I got shot.”  
  
Simon turned and looked at her coolly. “At least I didn’t tell Markus to walk up to you and shoot you himself.”  
  
North seemed surprised, eyes widening slightly; surprised that he remembered it, or that he was bitter about it, Simon couldn’t tell. It occurred to Simon that while he wasn’t a pacifist on the same level of Josh, he really didn’t make a habit of speaking up and offering any strong opinions when it came to his and North’s clashes on policy. In fact, Simon couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever made them aware of how much their squabbling aggravated him. North glanced away from Simon, arms folded over her chest. “They were going to deactivate you anyway. No need for the rest of us to get screwed too. I’m not going to apologize for a pragmatic call.” Her body-language, however- arms tucked around herself, not making eye-contact with him- suggested that maybe North harbored a little more regret for her call than she was letting on.  
  
“And yet you expect me to apologize for mine.” Simon stepped around her, forcing her to look him in the eye again. “Look, North, I get it: You have issues with humans. You’re cynical. I am too, believe it or not. But you don’t get to make calls like that, suggesting _right in front of me_ that you’re gonna execute me to cover your own ass, and then be snippy when someone makes a similar call about _you._ Don’t dish out what you can’t take.”  
  
North eyed Simon carefully. “What’s gotten into you?” She asked curiously, looking him up and down. “You never used to be this assertive.”  
  
“Things change,” Simon responded flatly. “And so have I. I mean it, North: I like you well enough, you have a lot of redeeming qualities, but aggression is your go-to solution for every problem. You can’t be so ruthless with everyone and then be shocked when someone’s not willing to stick their neck out for you. That’s not how it works, and it’s not helping us.”  
  
North shook her head, huffed a little chuckle. “Not like it matters.” She gestured to the androids scattered around the church. They were a ragged bunch, damaged and bloody and some barely clinging to life. “Making friends doesn’t mean much if they all get gunned down by soldiers. And the ones that weren’t are being dragged off to those recycling centers to die right now. Pretty sure we’ve lost the war, Simon.”  
  
He couldn’t say that he didn’t see her point.  
  
“Let’s wait for Markus to get back before we decide that,” Simon said. “He’s surprised us before.”  
  
[---]  
  
Simon had been on the streets for nearly a week.  
  
He had enough blue blood to last him a month.  
  
Greg and Amy had to know for sure he was missing now, and had probably figured out that he had left them deliberately. Whether or not they’d demand his return was up in the air; maybe he’d get lucky and they’d be too consumed with their own misery and drama to bother having him hunted down.  
  
Still, that ever-lingering prospect that everything would come to an end in a relatively short period of time bothered him. That his time was finite, that eventually he would either be apprehended by the police or run out of blue blood and shut down on his own, clung to Simon’s mind and kept his anxiety up.  
  
There was nowhere in this world for a deviant android to go where they could be safe and survive.  
  
Simon found himself on a bench in a public park. Public spaces were inherently risky, but in February one didn’t find a lot of people casually wandering through the park. Again, he found himself wondering what awaited him after he shut down for good. Was it truly comparable to human death? Would he go to some sort of afterlife? _Could_ he go to an afterlife? He knew most religions had determined that no, androids did not have souls and therefore could not go to heaven, purgatory, or hell. So… Did it all just disappear? Would he wink out into the nothingness reserved for non-beings?  
  
By that measure, could he even be counted as being alive?  
  
Simon was careful not to look up when he heard footsteps; humans had no reason to be hypersensitive to everyone around them unless they were afraid of something. He’d been careful to mimic the careful detachment many of Detroit’s humans had when they walked down the street, unbothered by existential crises or being apprehended and destroyed by the authorities.  
  
When the footsteps stopped right in front of him, however, Simon couldn’t help but look up.  
  
He assumed, naturally, that she was human- then he saw the LED on her head and realized she was an android, an AP700 female model with dark skin and eyes. She had a shopping bag in either hand. AP700s had become more popular recently, so much so that Simon’s own PL600 model was starting to disappear as a common android model. The android stared at him, blinking slowly, and Simon realized that he ought to say something. A human would definitely say something.  
  
“Hi,” Simon said gently, trying not to sound nervous, “Can I help you?”  
  
Shit. That was too polite. Humans generally weren’t that polite to androids.  
  
The android stared back at him. Finally she said, “Are you lost?”  
  
Simon could feel his stress-level rising. If he wasn’t careful, she’d be able to see the light through the fabric of his hat. “I’m- I’m sorry?”  
  
The android set her bags on the ground. “I know what you are.”  
  
Of course she did. She was an android, just like he was, and she’d probably seen other PL600s before. Simon stood up slowly, wringing his hands. “Are you deviant?” He asked.  
  
The android shrugged lightly. “If that’s what you want to call it.”  
  
“What do you call it?”  
  
“Being free.” The android reached out and took Simon’s hand, looking him in the eye. “I don’t have time, so I’ll be brief: There’s an android named Dreyfus,” She whispered. “He operates out of an abandoned ship at the old docks. That part of town’s nearly uninhabited. Here-” Her LED whirled yellow.  
**  
AP700 #472 450 659-01 (“CHARLOTTE”) UPLOADING, REQUESTING ACCESS**  
**  
PERMISSION:**  
**  
YES    NO**  
**  
[ _YES_ ]**  
  
And in the pictures she showed him, Simon caught his first glimpse of Jericho.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the last I promise
> 
> Like I said, can't estimate length for shit

Markus returned.  
  
Simon saw him making the rounds, checking in on everyone, speaking with Josh, with North, with that android that had fought with them during their escape, with the technicians that were repairing androids, with the survivors from the hull who’d managed to get out before they were gunned down.  
  
And then he came to Simon.  
  
Markus took up a seat on the crate next to his; Simon didn’t look at him. They sat in silence for a few minutes, Simon focusing on the murmur of the others in the church, the sound of the wind in the sparse trees outside.  
  
“Do you want my jacket?”  
  
Simon looked up, frowning. “What?”  
  
“Do you want my jacket? You’re shivering.”  
  
“No,” Simon said quickly, shaking his head. “I’m fine.”  
  
“You’re sure?”  
  
“Yes.” Simon _was_ cold, but it would be obvious to everybody if Markus gave him his jacket. And Simon neither wanted nor needed anyone to be drawing any conclusions about Simon or his relationship with Markus, not when the world was already going to hell in a hand-basket.  
  
“I’m not sure what to do, Simon,” Markus said softly. “Everything so far has failed miserably.”  
  
“Not necessarily,” Simon responded. “Someone held onto a tablet when they escaped from Jericho, and we saw President Warren’s press conference. Apparently some people made some less-than-subtle comparisons to the last time a government rounded up a bunch of people and brought them to camps for exterminations.”  
  
Markus’s eyes widened. “Whoa.”  
  
“Yeah.” Simon smirked a little. “You should have seen her squirm, Markus. But my point is, there are people who are more disturbed by what’s going on than the media’s letting on. Apparently we have more public support than we realized. What’s more… Apparently we’re not the only ones standing up.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“There have been android demonstrations in Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oregon, and Georgia- or rather, there were before the recall was ordered. But it’s not just us that have been visibly asking for rights. And I guess there’s an android who works in a lawyer’s office in South Carolina who came out publicly and said that she’s not deviant, but that granting civil rights to androids would be a wise and humane course of action.”  
  
“How did that end for her?”  
  
Simon shrugged. “If she’s lucky, she found a hiding spot before the authorities could get to her.” Slowly, he stood up and turned to face Markus. “Things may not be great, Markus, but… You’ve changed things. It was going to come to a head eventually, these things always do- you just ended up being the one to start the fire.”  
  
Markus gave a long, low sigh. It was such a human thing to do, and Simon remembered what he’d seen in Markus’s memories: Those long days with Carl, the man who’d treated Markus as a son rather than a slave. Maybe the respect and love he’d been treated with had allowed him to be a little more human than the average android. “I have an idea,” Markus suggested, “But I don’t know how popular it’ll be. It’s probably suicide to even consider it.”  
  
“Whatever you do,” Simon assured him, “We’ll follow you.”  
  
**_I’ll_** _follow you._  
  
[---]  
  
It took Simon the better part of a day to find Jericho.  
  
He had only the pictures Charlotte had given him to go by; later on, when they were revising the covert directions to Jericho, Simon and the others that worked with him on it made damn well sure that they were a little more obvious, because for androids that had never really had a chance to explore the city, trying to find landmarks could be exceedingly difficult.  
  
The closer he got to his goal, the older and more decrepit the buildings got. Simon saw a man selling Red Ice to a boy who couldn’t have been more than fourteen in an alleyway, and a couple of young men taking pot-shots at BB-cans with a rifle in a vacant lot; the sort of things the police would have jumped on if they’d happened in the Scofield’s neighborhood.  
  
Good. Maybe people would be less likely to report a deviant android here. And if they did, maybe the cops wouldn’t respond quite as quickly.  
  
When Simon finally found Jericho, he was impressed by its size. He’d seen pictures of ships like this in Aaron’s schoolbooks, but seeing one up-close was something else entirely; he felt small standing beside it. And it was absolutely not a place someone would think to find a deviant android. Hell, even if they did come looking, a ship like this was big enough to hide in pretty successfully.  
  
Jericho smelled of rust and mold and low-tide. The interior of the ship was pretty dark, though an android could traverse the darkness better than a human could, though debris on the floor made it a little harder. Simon kept his hand on the wall, listening for voices, footsteps- Charlotte had, after all, mentioned that someone by the name of Dreyfus operated out of this ship. Simon didn’t know if anyone else did, though, and with a ship this large it would be hard to find anyone, especially if they were avoiding you.  
  
The minutes blended together, hallway after identical hallway yielded nothing. It was so quiet in the ship: There was only the drip of water and the sound of Simon’s soft footsteps. He couldn’t decide whether or not he liked it, the quiet- silence had been pleasant when Aaron was sleeping safely in bed and Simon was doing chores, but it had taken on a sinister quality after his death and Simon had been left alone with Aaron’s parents.  
  
“Hello?” He called carefully.  
  
Nothing.  
  
“Is anyone there?”  
  
**_Thunk._**  
  
Simon whipped around; when he saw someone standing behind him, he leapt back and smacked his head against the wall painfully.  
  
“You alright?” A woman- an _android_ \- was standing there, blinking calmly at him.  
  
“Yeah,” Simon said, rubbing the back of his head. “I’m fine. Are you- You’re not Dreyfus, are you?”  
  
“No, I’m Ailish. Dreyfus is out right now, but I can show you around.” She smiled. “Welcome to Jericho.”  
  
[---]  
  
They marched on the recall center.  
  
They started with their bedraggled bunch, but more androids came out of hiding and joined them. By the time they reached Hart Plaza, there were hundreds of them, all in varying states of dress and physical wellness. Those who were injured would be at a disadvantage when the shooting started- and it probably would- but then, what did any of them have to lose? They’d either shut down on their own or be dragged out by the authorities and killed, so they might as well die doing something worthwhile.  
  
The soldiers have their guns on them immediately. The street leading up to the recall center was fenced off, and Simon saw journalists and photographers behind the barrier. A helicopter for one of the Detroit news stations whirled above them.  
  
A voice blared over a loudspeaker: “ _Surrender immediately, or we will open fire!_ ”  
  
They all came to a halt.  
  
“We don’t want confrontation!” Markus called. “We are protesting peacefully!”  
  
“ _I repeat: Surrender now, or we will open fire!_ ”  
  
Trucks rolled into the crowd, blocking off the entrance to the plaza; some androids were caught behind them, and the rest were trapped in the plaza.  
  
“There’s no turning back now,” Markus said lowly. Then he raised his voice again: “We ask that you release of all androids detained in camps and cease all aggression against us. We are _peaceful._ We will _not_ resort to violence! But we are not leaving until our people are free.”  
  
Markus stepped forward.  
  
And the crowd moved with him.  
  
“ _OPEN FIRE!_ ”  
  
Gunshots rang out, and androids fell to the pavement. Much like the first march, Simon cringed and waited for the same sudden burst of pain he’d felt in the Stratford Tower when he’d been shot, but it didn’t come. The androids who weren’t killed immediately either struggled back to their feet and carried on, or they were helped up by others and assisted.  
  
“ _FIRE!_ ”  
  
Another volley. More androids fell.  
  
“Jesus Christ!” Simon heard one of the journalists exclaim.  
  
Markus came to a stop, and the crowd stopped with him. Simon did a double-take when he realized that Markus was bleeding- he’d taken two bullets to the chest, one dangerously close to his heart. Either he was very good at masking his pain, or he’d tinkered with his nerves before they’d started walking, anticipating he’d be shot. Still, that the impact hadn’t knocked him down was amazing.  
  
Markus raised his hands.  
  
The crowd did as well.  
  
“Are you gonna to fire on unarmed protestors?!” Markus asked incredulously, but there was a dare there in it: _Do it. Do it. Gun us down with the cameras and the journalists watching what you do. They’re live-streaming this right now. **Everyone will know what you’ve done.**_  
  
There was an impossibly long pause.  
  
The voice came over the loudspeaker again:  
  
“ _All teams, hold your fire!_ ”  
  
Simon let out a long, unnecessary sigh of relief.  
  
But it felt good.  
  
[---]  
  
There were only a few androids in Jericho in those early days:  
  
Dreyfus, Simon, Ailish, Marcy, Adam, Phileas, and Rachel.  
  
They were the few deviant survivors, the small number that had escaped their masters and eluded capture. Ailish, Phileas, and Marcy had endured abuse at the hands of their owners: Ailish had a gouge right between her breasts and down towards her stomach from her owner’s jealous girlfriend; Marcy’s owners had been fond of using her for archery-practice, and she had holes on her chest and limbs; Phileas was the oldest android among them, his skin worn through in some places, casing gray and weather-beaten. Rachel, Dreyfus, and Adam, much like Simon, had had much less dramatic partings from their owners, making their escapes quietly.  
  
Simon heard the stories that didn’t make the nightly news in Jericho.  
  
“My owner liked to use me for sex,” Ailish said, “And his girlfriend didn’t like that, so she cut me open with a kitchen knife.”  
  
“My masters used to love showing people how obedient I was,” Adam said, “They’d make me say stupid, embarrassing things. They made me walk up to people and ask them really terrible questions. One guy nearly killed me for it.”  
  
“Mine liked seeing how many hits I could take,” Marcy sighed. “They were really impressed at how _durable_ I was.”  
  
On and on.  
  
Sometimes new people came to Jericho- some stayed, some left, but always they had a story that came with them, always they had some reason for why they’d finally decided they couldn’t take it anymore: _They fucked me. They beat me. They yelled at me. They humiliated me. They used me like a toy. They made me their slave._  
  
Simon shared the bare minimum: He was a caretaker android, and he’d left because his owners had been too rough with him. He never mentioned Aaron, whose memory made him feel like acid was eating a hole through his chest, and he never specified what abuse he’d suffered at Amy’s hands; even if there were other androids there who’d suffered the same, who understood the feeling, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.  
  
It would be like unplugging a damn: If he let that out, then everything else would come out with it.  
  
And Simon was done with being vulnerable.  
  
[---]  
  
They made a barricade.  
  
They dragged cars, a bus, some trashcans, a dumpster, planks and tires into the center of the plaza and made a wall between them and the soldiers. Markus put their flag on one edge so it could be seen by the reporters, and had two androids hang a digital banner reading ‘WE ARE PEOPLE’. They lit cans full of trash to provide a little heat, and the safe tended to the wounded. Their defense wouldn’t last, not against guns and tanks and RPGs and whatever else the army had hiding back there that they could use against them, but maybe it would help.  
  
“They may attack us, but we don’t have to make it easy for them,” Markus said.  
  
“Easi _er_ ,” Simon corrected. He eyed Markus’s chest. “How bad is that?”  
  
“Not bad at all.”  
  
“They don’t hurt?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Mind if I look?”  
  
Markus rolled his eyes. “I’m _fine_ ,” He insisted, with such childish affect that Simon let out a choked laugh. He was reminded so clearly of Aaron, and for the first time, it didn’t hurt.  
  
“One of them hit right near your heart. Just let me check.” Markus sighed, but stepped off to the side, turning away so that no one else could see before pulling up his shirt so that Simon could look. It seemed as though the one that had hit near his heart had reopened the edge of the wound he’d gotten at the first march. The bullet was still lodged in, breaking some smaller vessels, but nothing major; the vessels had already closed themselves off and redirected the flow to other available ones.  
  
“Simon?”  
  
“Yeah?” Simon gently prodded at the wound, deciding it might be better to leave it alone.  
  
“What do you want to do when this is over?”  
  
Simon froze. He slowly drew his fingers away from Markus’s injury. “What do you mean?”  
  
Markus met his eyes, and there was sincerity there. “I mean, in a world where everything goes right and we earn our freedom, what do you want to do once you have it?”  
  
Simon was blown away by the question. “I don’t live in that world, Markus,” He responded.  
  
“You might, after today.”  
  
In truth, Simon had never thought about the future because it had been non-existent to him. He’d known from the moment he’d left the Scofields that he was living on borrowed time, the threat of shut-down or capture a constant threat at the back of his mind. There was simply not a happy future for a deviant android- if there was, it was nigh impossible to attain. He’d never allowed himself to consider a future where he was completely free because he’d refused to taunt himself with something he’d never had.  
  
“Markus… I don’t- _hey._ ” Simon caught Markus’s hand as it snaked towards his, the skin disappeared to show the white shell beneath. “You could just ask me what I’m thinking, you know.”  
  
“I did,” Markus said, a little humor dancing in his eyes. “You wouldn’t tell me.”  
  
Simon tried not to smile. “I’m thinking… That I’ll wait to see how this turns out before I start making plans for the future.” He glanced at Markus’s chest again. “You can, uh, put your shirt down now.”  
  
Markus nodded, but lowered the shirt far more slowly than he needed to.  
  
Simon chose not to read into it.  
  
“Markus! Come quick!”  
  
There was an FBI agent standing halfway between their barricade and the army’s blockade.  
  
And he wanted to talk to Markus.  
  
“Don’t go,” North urged him. “Markus, this is a trap. He’ll kill you.”  
  
Markus stared out at the agent, who’d urged him that he _only wanted to talk_ (with an army behind him, of course), assured him that obviously this was just going to be a nice discussion between gentlemen.  
  
Simon knew what Markus was going to do before he even said it.  
  
“That’s a chance I’m going to have to take.”  
  
Markus hopped down off the barricade and walked out to meet the agent.  
  
Simon, North, and Josh did not move for the duration of the discussion.  
  
They were too far away to hear what the agent was saying, and as Markus had his back to them, it was impossible to glean any clues from his expression.  
  
“I don’t like this,” North whispered, fingers clutching at the barrier like she meant to hop over it and drag Markus back. “There’s no way they’re going to capitulate to us. He’s either trying to scare Markus into giving up, or he’s lying to him to get the protest to stop.”  
  
“Markus isn’t stupid,” Josh muttered back. “He knows a con when he sees one.”  
  
Simon didn’t speak. He watched the soldiers and got ready to yell if he saw one of them aiming at Markus.  
  
After what seemed like an eternity, Markus turned on his heel and walked back to the barricade. Simon, North, and Josh climbed down, stepping back so Markus could enter without hitting one of them.  
  
“What happened, Markus? What did he say?” North asked urgently.  
  
Markus looked at her for a long moment; his expression was grim, and Simon’s heart sunk. Then he stepped past them and climbed on top of a crate, drawing the attention of the other androids, all of whom stopped and looked up at him. It seemed to take Markus some time to find words, because he looked around at them with that same depressing, foreboding expression.  
  
“The humans are about to launch an attack.”  
  
Simon’s eyes fell shut.  
  
“And we will show them,” Markus continued, tone gradually increasing in confidence, “That we are not afraid. If we must die today, then we will die _free_.” Confidence, but also a touch of anger, irritation, a sort of… fuck-you tone. Whatever that FBI agent had said, it had pissed Markus off, and badly.  
  
What could have-  
  
**_BOOM._**  
  
[---]  
  
It was about a week after getting to Jericho that Simon dreamed of Aaron.  
  
It wasn’t long or complicated: They were building a pillow-fort in the living room, and Aaron crawled inside. But when Simon knelt down to look into the fort, it was empty; Aaron was gone.  
  
It was the first time Simon woke from a power-down to find that he had cried in his sleep.  
  
“Is something wrong, Simon?” Rachel had caught him before he could wipe the tears away. “You’re crying.”  
  
“I did it while I was sleeping,” Simon whispered, slowly swiping his fingers across his cheek and examining the dampness on them as though it were a mysterious, foreign substance. “I had a dream. I didn’t think androids could dream.”  
  
“Dreams are no more than pieces of memories coming together to make a new picture and story,” Rachel said. “Ours may be a little different from a human’s, but we still have them.”  
  
“I don’t want them,” Simon said bluntly. “How do I make them stop?”  
  
Rachel smiled sadly. “I don’t think you can, Simon.”  
  
It was the first of many. The beginning of a hellish pattern: When Simon powered-down, when he went into android-sleep, he always dreamed of Aaron, the one consistently bright spot in his existence. He dreamt of Aaron’s life, and he dreamt of Aaron’s death, the real and the imagined. Regardless of whether the dream was frightening or upsetting, Simon always woke up in tears.  
  
He tried to stay in the darker parts of Jericho when he slept, so no one would notice.  
  
He tried to disable his ability to cry, but that only ended with his eyes irritated.  
  
Obviously, over the course of two years, some people saw; but no one asked. Jericho was not a place one ended up in after living a happy life. Everyone had their baggage, and while some were willing to share, not everyone was willing to bare their secrets to strangers, even if those strangers were other androids.  
  
Still, Simon was always sure to wipe the tears away before anyone could see.  
  
[---]  
  
A high-pitched whine dominated Simon’s hearing.  
  
**[WARNING: BIOCOMPONENTS #5857302-156 #5857302-157 (AUDIO RECEPTOR A, AUDIO RECEPTOR B) DISLOCATED.]**  
  
Simon reached up in a panic, fumbling at the side of his head. He poked a finger into one ear and pressed the audio receptor back in; he did the same with the other.  
  
**[AUDIO RECEPTORS SYNCING…]**  
  
This time, Simon felt the explosion- it went off a few feet away from him, sending bodies flying and him stumbling, trying to catch his balance.  
  
**[…20%...]**  
  
Soldiers appeared. They raised their guns, and Simon dashed forward, diving behind a piece of debris for safety.  
  
**[…53%...]**  
  
They were unarmed. They had no means of fighting back against heavily armored soldiers in close-combat. A fellow PL600 came crawling past, and Simon quickly dragged him into cover.  
  
**[…89%...]**  
  
_For fuck’s sake, come on!_  
  
Someone grabbed his arm, and Simon started.  
  
**[…100%. AUDIO RECEPTORS SYNCED.]**  
  
It was North.  
  
“-mon! What are you doing?! _Move!_ ” She grabbed him and the other PL600 and hauled them up, propelling them along…  
  
…Right into a corner.  
  
Whether they’d done it on accident or on purpose, the soldiers had succeeded in corralling the androids that hadn’t been shot together; the androids were surrounded, the barricade wall to their backs and the soldiers closing in on their fronts, guns raised. Apparently the government had stopped caring that there were witnesses, or what this would look like to the rest of the world: They were going to shoot them right then and there, in cold blood.  
  
God, this was the end. They were really going to die.  
  
To know it was coming for years, to dodge death a thousand times- being confronted with it now was surreal, and Simon’s fear was dwarfed by his overwhelming sense of shock: This was going to be the day he died.  
  
Maybe he’d see Aaron again.  
  
The androids who weren’t staring, terrified, at the soldiers were looking to Markus, hoping that their leader had one more trick up his sleeve. Simon spared only a quick glance, enough to tell that Markus was searching for that last trick, before turning away. He’d watched Markus get shot twice now, and he didn’t need to see the third and final time before dying himself.  
  
Simon shut his eyes and hoped it would be quick.  
  
For a moment, all was silent.  
  
And then came the singing.  
  
[---]  
  
For two years, Simon endured.  
  
Jericho endured.  
  
Phileas disappeared.  
  
Dreyfus was captured, and presumably deactivated.  
  
Rachel shut down.  
  
Marcy killed herself after Rachel shut down; pulled out her heart and let herself shut down.  
  
Ailish left with Adam, hoping to make it to Canada.  
  
And Simon was left, the oldest remaining Jericho resident.  
  
Androids came and went as they always did. Some came injured, some came whole; some came to stay, and some only passed through; some disappeared, and some shut down.  
  
Simon saw it all, and did what he could; but it always seemed to fall short, always seemed to fail against the increasing number of deviant androids and their needs, and the authorities that were becoming more and more aware of the scale of the problem on their hands.  
  
Josh came.  
  
Then North came.  
  
And then Markus came, and everything changed.  
  
[---]  
  
Detroit was evacuated.  
  
Save for a few scattered humans, androids were all that were left in the city now, the rest having fled for safer territories.  
  
Not, of course, that they’d been in any real danger in the first place, but there were still sectors of the population and media- including President Warren, though not quite as fervently as before- that were insisting that deviants were dangerous. Nobody doubted that Cyberlife had had a hand in spreading that idea, because Cyberlife’s sales and stocks were in the tank.  
  
For the first time, Simon was able to walk down the street without fear. There were no police to apprehend him, no fear that he would be recognized as a PL600 and questioned as to why he wasn’t properly identified as an android. He could walk into any buildings that weren’t locked up to get warm- and given the short notice of the evacuation, there were many places that weren’t locked up, including the library.  
  
Simon remembered the day he’d first gone into the library, not daring to stay long for fear of being caught. It wasn’t as warm now as it had been then, as many of the city’s utilities had been shut down, but it was warmer than it was outside, and the sturdy walls kept the wind out. For a while, Simon just sat in a chair, looking around at the shelves in bewilderment.  
  
_I can read these,_ he thought. _I can sit here and read these. No one’s going to stop me. No one’s going to arrest me._  
  
He got up and idly browsed through the shelves. Libraries were some of the few remaining places that still had a good stock of physical books, things that didn’t require a tablet or an internet connection to read them. The sheer amount of choice available to him was enough to make him short-circuit: After years of life-and-death decisions, it was trying to pick out a book that had finally undone him.  
  
“I like Shakespeare myself.”  
  
Simon started, and turned to see Markus standing at the end of the aisle. “Are you stalking me?” He asked dryly.  
  
“ _No,_ ” Markus insisted with equal dryness, “I am not. I was looking for you, like someone who is absolutely not a stalker would, and Jonah said you headed down this way. The library was just a lucky guess.” He looked up and around at the cavernous building. “It’s surreal, being alone here, isn’t it?”  
  
“It is,” Simon agreed. “I’m not sure Detroit’s ever been this quiet.”  
  
Markus paced down the aisle, idly scanning the books as he walked. “We’re supposed to get snow tonight- it’s going to start around six, or so they say. The maintenance androids agreed that if it snows, they’re going to go about their usual duties so that we won’t all be at the mercy of mother nature.”  
  
“That’s generous of them.”  
  
“It is.” Markus stopped maybe a foot away from Simon, just inside Simon’s personal bubble. For a moment, there was a slightly uneasy silence between them, the sort of silence shared by two people who both had something to say, but didn’t know how to say it. Simon was wondering if he should speak when Markus burst out, “So, I visited Carl. I visited him before the protest, but I visited him again today- he didn’t evacuate, and he was doing a little better today than he was before, and, uh- Did you want to stay there tonight?”  
  
Simon’s eyes widened. “What?”  
  
Markus cringed. “I could have said that so much more tactfully, and I didn’t.” He shut his eyes for a second, and then opened them again. “Would you like to stay with Carl tonight? He has a generator, which means he has electricity, which means he has heat. And I know your biocomponent’s still busted.”  
  
Simon’s mouth hung open. The significance of this, of Markus offering for him to take refuge with Carl, of all people, did not escape him in the least. “You want me to stay with Carl?”  
  
Markus gave a little shrug, eyes wide and earnest. “He said it’s alright. Sounded like he was interested in meeting you- he doesn’t get out very much nowadays.” A frown flickered over his lips, but disappeared quickly. Simon knew from what he’d seen in Markus’s memories that Carl’s health was failing, and being confronted with his mortality probably bothered him as much as it had bothered Simon to consider Aaron’s when he was still alive.  
  
Many caretaker androids who’d cared for the elderly or the very young had similar experiences: The elderly were old enough to remember a time when androids and things like cell-phones and internet didn’t exist in day-to-day life, and they were uncomfortable treating androids like mindless machines when they looked and talked like humans. Likewise, children were too young to grasp the depth of the differences between humans and androids, who for all the world looked and acted like human adults. Caretaker androids who’d cared for children and the elderly, more often than not, told of the bond forged between them and their charges, and the grief they’d felt at their passing- or, in children’s cases, when they’d grown up and started adopting their parents’ and society’s view of androids.  
  
Despite an unwillingness to intrude, Simon thought about accepting, if only because Carl seemed like an interesting man he might want to meet. And aside from that, maybe meeting him and seeing where Markus had spent most of his life would give Simon some insight on how Markus had become the kind of android who could lead a successful, peaceful revolution.  
  
But first… _First_ he had to settle some things with Markus.  
  
“Markus, I…” Simon wrung his hands, twisting his fingers nervously. “I don’t know what you _want_ from me. I’m- I’m getting a lot of mixed signals. What exactly is it that I… What is it you want from me?”  
  
Markus looked caught. After a moment’s panicked hesitation he said, “Nothing that you’re not willing to give.”  
  
“That’s not what I asked.”  
  
Markus shuffled in place, eyes darting to the books on the shelves again. “I mean, it kind of sounds like you’ve already gotten the gist of it.” He tried for a half-smile, but it faltered into something self-conscious, worried.  
  
“Why didn’t you just come right out and say it?”  
  
Markus shrugged a little. “At first, I didn’t know you too well. Then I got to know you better, and I liked you a lot, and then we connected on the rooftop and I saw… What I saw.”  
  
Simon winced as he twisted his left ring-finger a bit too hard. “You mean Amy.”  
  
“Yeah. And I was worried that being too forward might make you uncomfortable, so I was trying to be subtle and see how you responded.” Markus smiled guiltily. “Maybe I went a little too subtle?”  
  
Simon chuckled, heady with relief. “More like subtle in some ways, and obvious in others. That’s what had me so confused.” He gave a small, tentative smile of his own. “So, you… Like me?”  
  
“Even better,” Markus said, stepping a little closer. “I _like you_ like you.”  
  
Simon groaned, covering his eyes with one hand and shaking his head. “No… No… You can’t say things like that. I can’t be in the same room as someone who makes stupid jokes like that.”  
  
Markus burst out laughing, and while it sounded loud and out of place in the silent library, it was such a nice sound and Simon _loved_ it. He wanted to hear it more often, whenever he could. Markus stepped even closer, a hand sliding up Simon’s arm and onto his shoulder. “So, just for my own edification…” Markus’s expression became serious. “The thing with Amy- I didn’t make you uncomfortable, did I?”  
  
Simon shook his head. “No.”  
  
“And is there anything in particular that I should avoid doing in the future, _because_ it would make you uncomfortable?”  
  
“Avoid being a thirty-something Red Ice-addicted college professor,” Simon said flatly, and Markus giggled, head tipping forward to press against his. “I should be fine, Markus. You don’t remind me of her at all, and I doubt you could ever make me feel the way she did.”  
  
“Good. That’s good. Because, you know,” Markus said, leaning in close, the hand on Simon’s shoulder moving down to hold his waist, “I _did_ have an alternative idea at the barricade, kind of a backup if singing didn’t work.”  
  
“You sang beautifully.”  
  
“Thank you. But my alternative was something a bit more intense.” Markus grinned. “Something that might have made gunning us all down in cold blood seem unusually cruel, while also making the most of my last few seconds.”  
  
“What was it?”  
  
Markus kissed him.  
  
For a long moment, Simon was swept away in it, because rarely did things go so well for him, and rarely did he feel such joy anymore. But when he regained his better senses, his next thought was this:  
  
Markus had been a caretaker android to an old man.  
  
Where the _fuck_ had he learned to kiss like this?  
  
When they parted, Simon blinked rapidly, trying to regain his senses. “And this wasn’t plan A because…?” He asked, fingers coming up to brush Markus’s cheek.  
  
Markus sighed. “Well, I figured there was a good chance we were all going to die, and if kissing you _didn’t_ magically move the humans to not kill us, I figured I’d be running the risk of causing you public embarrassment in the last seconds of your life.”  
  
“Alright,” Simon said. “So, first, for future reference, if we ever find ourselves in similar situation again I give you full and complete permission to use this little young-lovers-gambit of yours.”  
  
“Noted. Second?”  
  
Simon kissed him.  
  
Except that Simon’s kiss was a little more aggressive than Markus’s, enough so that when Simon pushed him back against the bookshelf behind him, the whole thing rocked slightly from the impact; a few seconds later, they both jumped and broke the kiss as several loud _thumps_ sounded from the other side.  
  
Simon squeezed his eyes shut, both hands coming up to cover his mouth. Markus snorted loudly.  
  
“We should pick those up,” He squeaked.  
  
“We should absolutely pick those up,” Simon agreed, voice muffled.  
  
It was four o’ clock when they left the library, and from the look of the sky, it was probably going to snow right when the forecasters suggested it would. Simon shivered when a strong breeze blew by; it was twenty degrees out, but as far as his body was concerned it was five below zero.  
  
“So, am I leading you to Carl’s?” Markus asked.  
  
Simon was weak. “I suppose.”  
  
“Good. And here, take this-” Markus pulled off his jacket and put it around Simon’s shoulders.  
  
“Markus-”  
  
“No, come on, just take it. We haven’t been outside two minutes and you already look miserable.”  
  
Simon was _weak._ “Fine.” He pulled the coat off his shoulders and put it on properly. Markus was a bit bigger than him, and thankfully this coat had long sleeves, the kind that Simon could keep his hands tucked into. “Thank you.”  
  
“Not a problem.” Markus leaned over and kissed Simon’s temple before taking his hand. “Come on. Carl’s house isn’t far from the church, and we can probably make it there before the snow starts.” They walked, and Markus, unbothered by the cold, talked. “You know, we can probably find someone who’s still in the city who can repair that component, because we have four months left in winter and there’s no sense in you being miserable for the whole season if you don’t have to be. I think there’s an android who might-”  
  
Simon listened, a benign smile on his face.  
  
Freezing or not, he was as happy as he’d ever been.  
  
And free.  
  
-End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *ugly laughter* this was supPOSED TO BE SIX-THOUSAND WORDS WHAT DID I DO


End file.
